Why John Cornyn, a Senate GOP stalwart, could lose his Texas primary
2nd March 2026
The Washington Poop, a Voice of the Crust.
Barely a year ago, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) came close to becoming the Senate’s most powerful Republican. A former top lieutenant to Sen. Mitch McConnell while the Kentuckian was majority leader, Cornyn has built a reputation over more than two decades in the Senate as a staunch conservative who could still compromise with Democrats, an enormously prolific fundraiser and an architect of the Republican takeover of what is now the country’s biggest red state. He demolished every primary challenger he faced in three reelection races.
On Tuesday, he could lose it all.
Cornyn, 74, is facing formidable Republican primary challenges from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Rep. Wesley Hunt despite Cornyn’s enormous spending advantage. Cornyn and his allies in Washington have poured $69 million into ads in his defense, helping to make the primary one of the most expensive on record, according to AdImpact.
Still, polling shows Cornyn lagging behind or running even with Paxton, despite the attorney general’s numerous legal and personal controversies, such as his 2023 impeachment by the state House of Representatives on charges including bribery and abusing his office to cover up an affair.
The question that never gets asked, by Cornyn or anyone in the political establishment, is why? Why does a senior Republican in a presumably safe seat come to be in trouble? Why is he coming so close to losing to a rival who would seem to have several strikes against him?
But the one endorsement that could save Cornyn — President Donald Trump’s — has eluded him.
And there’s a reason for that. But nobody is asking what it might be.
Gregg Keller, who runs a super PAC backing Paxton, said much of the Republican base in Texas detests Cornyn and could stay home in November if Cornyn ekes out a primary victory.
“These Texas MAGA voters — they will not turn out in the general election for John Cornyn,” Keller said.
And there we have it. Cornyn isn’t an outright RINO like Murkowski or Romney or McCain, but he’s been coasting for far too long. He’s become the anchor on the ass of the Republican party in Texas, at a time when we need wind in our sails.
Many of Cornyn’s vulnerabilities in a Republican primary stem from what made him a formidable character in the Senate. His work on a bipartisan gun safety bill has been panned by the right in a state where the Second Amendment is politically sacrosanct. Paxton also blasted Cornyn’s work helping refugees settle in the United States and for calling Trump’s border wall “naive” in 2016.
“He’s been doing this for 24 years. People are just ready for a change, ready for someone that has more energy and that has the ability to go fight for them in Washington,” Paxton said shortly after a Saturday rally in Fort Worth. “John Cornyn doesn’t do that.”
Exactly.