Senate primary race in Texas becomes a key Republican battleground

MAGNOLIA, TEXAS—Just before sundown on a Thursday at the Angry Elephant bar last week, a slightly disheveled state Attorney General Ken Paxton stood before a group of more than 100 people who’d waited over an hour to hear him. Many attendees wore red, white, and blue, and although they’d come to listen to Paxton, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, make a plea for their vote, most in the boisterous crowd had already made up their minds to support him.

Paxton, taking the stage in front of an oversized Texas flag, asked whether U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, a fellow Republican, should get a fifth term in office. A resounding “No!” came from the front-row seats.

Less than 50 miles away on the same day, a much more subdued crowd of about 50 voters in Houston politely listened to Cornyn’s pitch to send him back to Washington for another six years. He touted his endorsements in the nation’s capital and from law enforcement groups. Cornyn often says he has voted with President Donald Trump 99.3% of the time. He promotes border security and says character still matters for officeholders and to Texas voters.

This week, Senate candidates tried to claim momentum for the rapidly approaching March 3 primary. On the Republican side, Cornyn, Paxton, and U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt appear to have divided the vote enough to force a runoff election in May between the top two vote-getters. And all the energy behind Ken Paxton is exactly what Democrats want in their bid to flip the important Senate seat blue in November.

“There’s not much doubt in people’s minds on who each of these people are,” said Wayne Hamilton, a longtime Texas political consultant and past executive director of the Republican Party of Texas. “The question voters have to ask themselves is, what do you want in a senator?”

Paxton had a small lead in the polls heading into early voting that started Feb. 17. Thirty-eight percent of likely voters said they intended to vote for Paxton, compared with 31% for Cornyn, and 17% for Hunt, a two-term representative who is counting on voters tired of the status quo to appreciate his military combat service and unwavering support for Trump. Only 2% indicated they would vote for one of the other five Republican candidates, with 12% undecided, according to a January University of Houston poll.

Nearly two-thirds of Republican primary voters said honesty is the top quality they’re looking for in a candidate, followed by being a problem-solver, moral, a fighter, and respectful. Paxton’s backers overwhelmingly prefer a candidate who is seen as uncompromising and a fighter, while Cornyn supporters value someone who is respectful, experienced, and willing to compromise.

Cornyn was first elected to the Senate in 2002 and has built his reelection campaign on the promise to get results for Texans from his well-worn seat in Washington, D.C. While he boasts that he typically votes with Trump, he’s known in the U.S. Capitol as a moderate Republican. At the Texas campaign event, Cornyn also reminded attendees that he helped secure the border, crossed the political aisle to bring money to Houston after Hurricane Harvey in 2017, and secured $11 billion reimbursed to the state of Texas for caring for illegal immigrants during the Biden administration.

“He is the only one qualified for the job, the only one that has the ethical standards for the job, and the only one that can win in November,” said SuZanne Feather, a longtime supporter from Houston, while waiting for Cornyn to arrive. “He doesn’t always vote with you, but he always does the right thing as far as he can make it work.”

But his voting record has lost him support. Many Texas Republicans soured on Cornyn after he voted to confirm Merrick Garland as U.S. attorney general and said he favors abortion exceptions for rape and incest. He also questioned the practicality of building a border wall during Trump’s first administration. Anger swelled after he worked with Democrats to toughen gun laws following the Uvalde school shooting in 2022 that killed 19 children and two adults. Delegates to the Texas Republican convention booed him off the stage in 2022. Furthermore, President Donald Trump has declined to give any endorsement in the primary race so far.

Nevertheless, Cornyn has never lost a statewide election. And with strong candidates vying for the Democratic primary, voters don’t want to risk a safe seat.

“It seems like he’s a very principled guy with very good character,” Chris Akbari, 47, from Houston, said after hearing Cornyn speak. “I think what we need in politics more than ever is people with a high quality of character. I also really like the fact that he’s got a proven track record of serving Texas, and I think doing a good job.”

Paxton has served as the state’s firebrand attorney general since 2015. At The Angry Elephant, he counted off the number of lawsuits he filed to stymie executive orders by Democratic Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden to prove he will shake things up if elected. In 2018, he led a coalition of states challenging the Affordable Care Act. He’s also prosecuted federal overreach in climate change initiatives and border policies that halted deportations for illegal immigrants.

“I feel like we need to change,” state Rep. Tom Oliverson, chair of the Texas House Republican Caucus, said at the Angry Elephant. “John Cornyn has been there too long. It’s not really about fighting for Texas values anymore. It’s about protecting the status quo and all that kind of stuff. And we need somebody who’s actually going to fight for Texas.”

But Paxton has a scandal-ridden career and personal life. His wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, filed for divorce last year, alleging he had committed adultery. In 2023, he survived 20 articles of impeachment—including allegations that he abused his authority to help a political donor and friend, committed bribery, made false statements, and obstructed investigations. Paxton also asked lawmakers to fund a $3.3 million mediated settlement with four aides who claimed whistleblower retaliation.

Texas Values Action is a Christian advocacy group that typically endorses political candidates. The group threw its support behind Paxton last year but then revoked it after the divorce proceedings began. Yet it’s not switching sides to Cornyn either. Instead, the group is not endorsing any candidate in the Senate race this year.

“We decided in this race that none of the three candidates have met our standard and criteria where we feel like we have to endorse in the race,” Jonathan Saenz, president of Texas Values and Texas Values Action, said. “We’ll see how it goes from there.”

“I don’t love that he’s made some mistakes in his personal life,” said Rep. Oliverson. “But what I think we need as a U.S. senator is a fighter and a conservative, and I think he’s really the only true, steel-spined conservative that we’ve got.”

Nearly $100 million has been spent or reserved on campaign advertising in both the Republican and Democratic Senate primaries, according to Ad Impact Politics. Cornyn’s war chest—including contributions from his PAC, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and joint committees—has already spent almost $60 million.

“When you look at polling, Cornyn has always not really gotten credit for much of anything, and his numbers have never really been strong,” said Hamilton, the former Republican Party of Texas director. “There’s not a group behind him that will die for John Cornyn. On other hand, there’s a group behind [Paxton] that believes he was persecuted and that the liberals and the RINOs were after him—they’ll go die for him.”

Paxton has won three statewide races, but the Democratic opponents in those elections didn’t have financial resources comparable to Cornyn’s.

“This will be the first election where he actually has to campaign as the candidate and not simply ride the Republican Party label and [Texas Gov.] Greg Abbott’s coattails to victory,” Rice University political science fellow Mark Jones said. “The national Republicans are afraid of the hypothetical situation where Paxton is their nominee and Democrats finally have the Democratic candidate and enough money to educate voters about Ken Paxton.”

Despite the silence from the White House about the race, Trump is scheduled to deliver remarks in Corpus Christi, Texas, about the economy on Friday. With Hunt in third place during early voting, it’s highly likely that Paxton and Cornyn will advance to the runoff. But where Hunt’s supporters go for that runoff election could determine Texas’ next senator.

“The data we have shows that more of Hunt voters will go to Paxton than Cornyn, and that at least right now, absent an endorsement of Cornyn by Donald Trump, that Paxton would be well positioned to win in the May 26 runoff,” Jones said. “That doesn’t mean that it would be that Cornyn has no hope, but it does suggest that it’s going to be tough sledding for Cornyn to try to win in May.”

—with additional reporting from Carolina Lumetta