AUSTIN–U.S. Sen. John Cornyn is down 9 points against Attorney General Ken Paxton in his 2026 primary bid for reelection in what’s likely the toughest race of his long political career.
Rarely are scandal-free, 22-year incumbents such underdogs, but the makeup of the Texas Republican primary is advantageous for Paxton and tricky for Cornyn. A conservative who has effectively bridged disparate political eras since he was first elected a state district judge in 1984, Cornyn must find a message, strategy and organization to overcome Paxton and win his fifth Senate term.
“The fact that Paxton jumped into this race and is leaving a very safe attorney general slot indicates Cornyn’s vulnerabilities,” said Republican political consultant Matthew Langston. “But we are sitting nine months from the election and nobody is really plugged into the race, so I don’t know that the polls today are going to be indicative of what the end result is.”
A Texas Southern University poll released last week showed Paxton with a 43% to 34% lead over Cornyn in a two-way race, with 23% of respondents unsure how they would vote.
In a possible three-way showdown, Paxton leads with 34%, with Cornyn second with 27% and U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt, R-Houston, with 15%. The Real Clear Politics average of recent polls has Paxton at 40%, Cornyn at 32.5% and Hunt at 15.5%.
The early polling offers insight into the challenges facing Cornyn and Paxton as the March GOP primary comes into focus. With the Texas legislative session ending Monday and a hot summer ahead, not many Texans are paying attention to primary politics. The race could change, but most analysts say Paxton is the front-runner.
Cornyn has heavy work to do to extend his Senate career.
“The poll shows that while John Cornyn may be the incumbent, Ken Paxton is the front-runner,” said Mark Jones, a political scientist and one of the authors of the poll. “I don’t think we’re at a point where we can say that Cornyn has no hope of victory, although he does have considerable ground to make up between now and March.”
Texas GOP primaries feature low voter turnout and are largely controlled by the party’s most conservative and activist voters. They are not swayed by bipartisan approaches to solving issues and tend to back policies that seem extreme to voters closer to the middle.
Cornyn discovered this when he helped broker a 2022 bipartisan Senate deal to curb gun violence. He was booed and heckled at that year’s state GOP convention in Houston. He dismissed the activists booing him as a “mob.”
Paxton, who doesn’t have a Washington legislative record to defend, bonds more easily with those voters. He has cast Cornyn as not being fully committed to the conservative cause.
That doesn’t mean Cornyn can’t chip away at that .
“Cornyn has to remind Republicans of things that he has done, the things that they wanted or liked,” Langston said. “He’s got the challenge of getting out of the D.C. bubble and reminding voters that he’s been with them for 22 years. He has to remind voters that he’s trusted and he can deliver for them.”
Recently, Cornyn has been highlighting his work for Texas taxpayers and advancing the agenda of President Donald Trump.
He recently introduced legislation to establish a reimbursement fund to cover states’ border expenses.
Cornyn said the intention was to include it in the sweeping legislative package moving through a process called budget reconciliation that does not require votes from Democrats. House Republicans added the reimbursement language to the bill just before it ed last month by a vote of 215-214.
Last month Cornyn also introduced a bill that would make it easier for federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty against people who are in the country illegally and convicted of killing American citizens.
Speaking of Trump, the president’s endorsement could shift the race either way, so both candidates are interested in his .
In contrast, Paxton can speak to the federal government’s previous shortcomings with “inflation, taxes and open borders,” Langston said.
“Paxton has the easier message in a primary,” Langston said. “He’ll pound a message that voters don’t need a career, Washington politician.”
Part of Cornyn’s strategy is portraying Paxton as unfit to be a U.S. senator.
He’s called Paxton a “con man and a fraud.”
Cornyn wants to make character an issue in the race.
“I’m not going to turn over the Senate seat that was once held by Sam Houston to somebody like him,” Cornyn said in April. “We will fight this to the end, and we will win.”
In May of 2023, the Texas House impeached Paxton. Cornyn has pointed out that at the Senate trial, 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 he could use to visit a woman at her Austin condo. The Senate acquitted Paxton.
Paxton’s acquittal made him stronger with many conservative Texas voters, so Cornyn has to link the attorney general’s legal controversies to whether he’s a good choice as the Senate nominee.
Cornyn has made the argument that Paxton could lose the Senate seat to a Democrat if he’s the GOP nominee next year. In contrast, Cornyn in the 2020 general election received more votes than any nonjudicial candidate in Texas history.
The Texas Southern survey found Paxton would beat former U.S. Congressman and 2024 Senate nominee Colin Allred, D-Dallas, by only two percentage points if the election were held now. Cornyn would beat Allred by four percentage points. Allred, who lost a 2024 Senate race against Republican Ted Cruz, is considering running next year for the seat held by Cornyn.
“In the Republican primary, Cornyn’s best message against Paxton is that in a bad year for Republicans, Paxton could potentially lose to a Democrat like Allred and Cornyn would have a better cushion,” Jones said. “That’s still a hard needle to thread.”
Paxton has never lost a general election to a Democrat, even when saddled with legal troubles.
Jones said Hunt is a potential wild card. The Houston congressman is considering a campaign.
Still, much of the race’s tone could be determined by the state of the Texas economy and Trump’s performance as president. If the nation and Texas suffers through a downturn brought on by Trump’s policies, including tariffs, it could impact 2026 elections.
In any case Cornyn – as he has in the past – could convince conservatives to stick with him.
The Texas Senate race is easily the most intriguing contest on Texas ballots, perhaps on any ballot.