Paxton’s announcement sets up a blockbuster primary showdown between two of the titans of Texas Republican politics
Attorney General Ken Paxton on Tuesday launched a Senate campaign against Republican incumbent John Cornyn, setting up a potentially bruising 2026 primary that could change the face of the Texas GOP.
Paxton officially launched his Senate campaign website Tuesday afternoon, shortly before appearing on Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle.
“It’s definitely time for a change in Texas,” Paxton said on the cable news talk show hosted by Laura Ingraham. “We have another great U.S. Senator, Ted Cruz, and it’s time we have another great senator that will actually stand up and fight for Republican values, fight for the values of the people of Texas and also support Donald Trump in the areas that he’s focused on in a very significant way.”
Paxton, 62, has teased a run for Senate for nearly two years. He has criticized Cornyn on an array of issues, including pushing a 2022 bipartisan compromise on gun safety. And Paxton pointed out that at times, Cornyn has opposed the president.
After his appearance on the Ingraham show, Paxton released a statement critical of Cornyn.
“I’m running for U.S. Senate to fight for President Trump’s agenda and take a sledgehammer to the D.C. establishment,” Paxton said in the statement. “John Cornyn has been in Washington for over two decades, and he has turned his back on President Trump and the America First agenda time after time.”
He said, “it’s crystal clear that it’s time for a change.”
“I’m a battle-tested Attorney General and conservative warrior who’s secured major victories against the establishment, the corrupt Biden Administration, and woke corporations,” Paxton wrote. “Now, I’m ready to take that same toughness to the U.S. Senate.”
Cornyn, 73, is seeking his fifth term in the Senate.
First elected in 2002, he’s a former Texas Supreme Court Justice and attorney general. He announced his campaign last month with a two-minute video that fully embraced Trump, whose support could be critical in the March GOP primary.
A statement released Tuesday on social media by Cornyn’s campaign said, “Ken Paxton is a fraud.”
The statement — perhaps foreshadowing the bitter campaign to come — questions how tough the attorney general has been on crime and brings up allegations made during his 2023 impeachment.
“Ken claims to be a man of faith but uses fake Uber accounts to meet his girlfriend and deceive his family,” the statement read.
Impeachment managers presented evidence that Austin developer Nate Paul, who they said bribed Paxton, facilitated Paxton’s alleged extramarital affair by creating a fake Uber account he could use to visit the woman at her Austin condo. The Senate acquitted Paxton.
The statement added: “He says his impeachment trial was a sham but he didn’t contest the facts in legal filings which will cost the state millions.”
“This will be a spirited campaign and we assure Texans they will have a real choice when this race is over,” the statement said.
University of Houston political scientist Brandon Rottinghaus said the Senate primary will be one of the most expensive in history and give the Texas GOP distinct choices.
“This might be the most hard-fought primary since the ‘70s,” he said. “It’s a transition moment for the Republican Party in Texas. They can go into an increasingly conservative direction, or they can stick with the one that brought them, and that’s the real kind of conundrum that they face.”
Paxton, who previously served in the Texas House and Senate, has been attorney general since 2015. The Texas House in 2023 impeached him over public corruption allegations, but he was cleared after a trial in the Texas Senate.
Since then, polls show Paxton stronger than ever with the party’s most conservative activists, those that play a major role in GOP primaries.
Cornyn is off and running. For more than two years, he’s persistently met with Texas Republican Party Executive Committee members, county chairpersons, members of the Texas Federation of Republican Women and other groups to bolster his standing with grassroots activists.
He’s also embraced Trump. Last month, he posted on X a picture of him reading Trump’s book, The Art of the Deal.
Mark Jones, a political scientist at Rice University, said the U.S. Senate race likely will be a hard-fought, even nasty primary battle.
“You can sort of see the two storylines,” Jones said. “Paxton will be attacking Cornyn for being insufficiently conservative on core Republican policy issues. And Cornyn or his surrogates will be airing as much of Paxton dirty laundry as possible, making the argument that if he is the nominee, he could lose a general election.”
Cornyn and Paxton may not be the only contenders in the Senate primary. Other names mentioned as possible candidates include U.S. Reps. Wesley Hunt of Houston and Beth Van Duyne of Irving.
The Howard University graduate and Chicago native has covered four presidential campaigns and written extensively about local, state and national politics. Before The News, he was a reporter at The Kansas City Star and The Chicago Defender. You can catch Gromer every Sunday at 8:30 a.m. on NBC 5’s Lone Star Politics.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login