Republicans are increasingly concerned that a bitter Senate primary in Texas next year could make it harder to defend their majority in the upper chamber.
Earlier this week, the Senate Leadership Fund rolled out a poll showing Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) trailing Attorney General Ken Paxton by 16 points. But in a hypothetical general election poll, Paxton loses by 1 point to former Rep. Colin Allred (D-Texas), who is considering a run.
Cornyn and his allies argue that if Paxton wins the GOP nomination, Republicans will be forced to allocate more resources as the party seeks to defend and expand its majority in the Senate.
“The main concern is that nobody wants to spend a bunch of money in Texas where we should be able to win a race,” Cornyn told The Hill, noting the recent poll showing Paxton down against Allred.
“That would be the first time since 1994 that a Democrat could win, so we’re not going to let that happen,” the senator added.
Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, has set a goal of netting Republicans 55 seats in the midterms next year, targeting Georgia, Michigan and New Hampshire and defending Republican seats in Maine, North Carolina and Ohio.
Many Republicans argue that the possibility of a Paxton nomination throws a wrench into that plan.
“I just hate seeing internecine warfare in my state that’s going to cost a lot of money and will take away from other Senate races where we have a chance of winning, and I think that’s the general sentiment,” said Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), who served as Cornyn’s deputy attorney general in Texas when Cornyn was attorney general there.
Cornyn’s allies argue the dynamics of the race will change, noting the campaign has time to close the gap in polling.
“They need to reintroduce the senator to voters because he hasn’t been on the ballot in six years,” said one national Republican operative. “Voters don’t know Ken Paxton for what he is.”
And Cornyn’s team has begun to throw attacks toward Paxton, rolling out a digital video and accusing the attorney general of approving $7.1 million in grants that have gone to liberal groups.
Paxton, a figure in the state’s rising far-right conservative wing, is seen by many in Washington as a controversial figure with a lengthy history of legal troubles, including now-dropped securities fraud charges, corruption allegations and an impeachment by the Texas state House.
It would not be the first time in recent history where Republicans lost a Senate seat in a deep-red state following a contentious primary. It was only eight years ago when former Sen. Doug Jones (D-Ala.) narrowly defeated Republican Roy Moore in Alabama in a special election in 2017 following a GOP primary runoff. Moore had faced a number of sexual misconduct allegations during the off-year election.
Some Republicans point to losses by other ultra-conservative candidates, like Kari Lake, who lost to now-Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) in the more purple state of Arizona.
But Paxton’s allies argue Republicans should pump the breaks on the narrative that the attorney general is a lost cause in a general election and would funnel resources away from other races.
“A Senate race in Texas is a $100 million race. It doesn’t matter who’s on the ballot,” said a senior adviser to Paxton’s campaign, citing Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-Texas) 2012 primary against then-Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst (R).
“No one makes that same claim about Ted Cruz,” the adviser said.
Cruz defeated Dewhurst in the primary, despite Dewhurst outspending Cruz and having the backing of the state’s GOP establishment.
Cornyn has already seen some warning signs from the Republican grassroots over the past few years.
In 2022, the senator helped lead the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which address gun control and school safety, through Congress after the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde. Cornyn was later booed at the Texas GOP convention that year, and the Collin County GOP voted to censure him.
While Cornyn and the Texas GOP appeared to have since moved on, with the state party’s Chair Abraham George praising Cornyn this month as “an ally” to the party, many Republicans say it could be too late.
“[The grassroots] booed him off the stage in 2022 for giving away their Second Amendment rights to the Biden administration, and those feelings haven’t changed, and it comes out clear in that polling,” Paxton’s adviser said.
Allred, who worked with Cornyn on the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act when he was in the House, criticized his state’s senior senator in an interview with journalist Tara Palmeri this week.
“I know John Cornyn, and I know what he actually believes, and I know that he has in many ways, I think, abandoned a lot of that because after all of these years in the Senate and after all of this time if office, he’s decided that the most important thing isn’t sticking to what he actually believes and representing Texas to the best of his ability and to his own values, but it’s just to get reelected again.”
Allred also hit Paxton, calling the attorney general “uniquely harmful to our state, to our reputation and who would be ineffective as a senator.”
An unnamed GOP strategist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity and does not believe Cornyn can win the primary, described the situation in Texas as a catch-22 for Republicans, noting what they said was Paxton’s weakness among the state’s general electorate.
“Ken Paxton is probably the only Republican in the state you could put on the ballot that would for sure put this seat at great risk,” the strategist said.
“9-out-of-10 panic is where you should be,” the strategist said, when asked how worried Republicans are about losing the seat. “This is a five alarm fire.”
But that panic does not appear to have hit the state’s conservative grassroots yet.
“Many donors have those concerns, many operatives have those concerns, but for the grassroots activists and the voters they are looking at the race saying the Republican nominee is going to win, and so we’re going to back the candidate that is most aligned with our values and for a lot of people it’s going to be John Cornyn and for a lot of people it’s going to Ken Paxton,” said Texas GOP strategist Brendan Steinhauser, who served as Cornyn’s 2014 campaign manager but is unaffiliated in this race.
Meanwhile, there is still another Republican who could impact the race if he were to jump in. Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-Texas) is mulling a run and has talked to the White House about the possibility of launching a bid, according to a source familiar. The same Senate Leadership Fund poll showed Hunt pulling in 19 percent in a three-way race with Cornyn and Paxton. In a head-to-head match-up with Allred, Hunt leads by 4 points.
“I think it’s pretty cool, right?” Hunt told The Hill when asked about the poll. The congressman said he is “keeping all options open.”
“Full disclosure, I love my district,” he added. “I’m in an excellent place. When you’re sitting on pocket aces, it makes it pretty easy to make a decision, but let’s see how the whole thing pans out.”
One of the biggest unknown factors in the race is whether President Trump endorses. Paxton is seen as fitting the MAGA brand and is personally liked by Trump, while Cornyn, despite criticizing Trump in the past, has championed his agenda in the Senate. Earlier this month, Cornyn’s office rolled out a memo showing the senator voting with Trump “over 99 percent of the time.”
A report from The Wall Street Journal this week demonstrated that the White House is not afraid to get involved in Senate primaries. The publication reported that members of the president’s team pointed Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) to polling conducted by veteran GOP pollster Tony Fabrizio showing the congresswoman losing by nearly 20 points to incumbent Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff (D).
“The White House is in an unfortunate position there but the fact that the White House hasn’t endorsed Cornyn already speaks volumes,” the unnamed GOP strategist said.
“Cornyn can’t win a primary and Paxton puts the seat at risk. That’s a horrific outcome for the White House and for the president and quite frankly for the vice president because on their watch, they don’t need Texas falling into Democrat hands,” the strategist said.
