Paxton is winning.
How a scandal-plagued challenger has a 24-year incumbent on the ropes
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The conventional wisdom in Texas politics is simple: if Republicans want to win the Senate race, they should nominate John Cornyn.
The case is obvious. John Cornyn is experienced, an effective legislator, and he’s repeatedly proven popular with the kinds of voters who decide general elections. His opponent, Ken Paxton, is a scandal-plagued extremist who seems like he was built in a lab to scare suburban voters.
But that logic rests upon an old theory of politics, one this race has sowed doubt in already. A respected four-term incumbent who spends $70 million should get more than 42% in their renomination contest. If he doesn’t, can we really call him electable?
John Cornyn is the kind of politician people write books about. He started his career in politics as an elected judge, first at the district level in San Antonio, before being elected to a term in the Texas Supreme Court in 1990. He served as Attorney General under George W. Bush and Rick Perry, before he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2002. He’s occupied just about every position in Senate Republican leadership except the top job. And if just three Senators had voted differently, John Cornyn would be the Senate Majority Leader right now, not John Thune. He has consistently put up strong electoral performances, running ahead of the newer, further right set of Texas Republicans like Paxton and Governor Greg Abbott.
Part of that may be due to John Cornyn’s reputation as a dealmaker in Washington. He can boast the highest legislative effectiveness score of all Senate Republicans. After a deadly school shooting in his home state, he was a key negotiator and supporter of the first major federal gun law to pass since he’d entered the Senate almost twenty years before. The brief sample of his voice on Wikipedia is a passionate defense of federal recognition of Juneteenth - to ease tensions after the murder of George Floyd and, invoking the Constitution, to form a more perfect union.
But John Cornyn’s historic strengths - as a bipartisan negotiator, a Senator who speaks in a judicial tone and upholds the gravitas of the chamber - have become his downfall in a Republican primary. As Uvalde fades further into memory, a large number of Republican primary voters in Texas are upset that their Senator helped pass gun legislation - even a bill as moderate as the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. Primary voters who increasingly hate the other side no longer see the ability to hammer out deals as a benefit.
John Cornyn knows that. He would rather talk about how he voted with Trump 99% of the time than how he’s a Senate workhorse. The Senator, a longtime supporter of the filibuster, recently authored an op-ed in the New York Post in favor of removing the filibuster to pass the SAVE Act, a restrictive national voter ID law. He tweeted that he was “all in” on banning mifepristone. Instead of embracing what made Cornyn electable, he’s tacked further to the right in fear of Republican primary voters. Whether it will win him the primary is still an open question. But if it does, he will have to defend those same positions to a very different general electorate.
Ken Paxton is the kind of politician people write Facebook posts about. Since he was first elected as Texas Attorney General in 2014, he’s launched countless lawsuits in support of MAGA causes - most notably leading the charge to overturn the 2020 election. Many of his quixotic struggles have not succeeded in court, but they’ve convinced the Republican base in Texas that he is their fighter.
Ken Paxton has historically been a mediocre electoral performer by Texas Republican standards. In 2014, he and Abbott both underperformed the veteran Cornyn. In 2018 he actually overperformed Cruz by one point, but ran behind Abbott. When Beto ran against the governor in 2022, that brought Abbott’s margin down to only one point better than Paxton’s.
That might be because Ken Paxton is a loathsome human being. He was indicted by the Texas House on charges of securities fraud, but escaped impeachment in the Senate with the support of Trump. He’s accused of stealing a $1,000 Montblanc pen from another lawyer, though he claims he found it lost and intended to return it. His now-ex-wife Angela, a high-ranking state senator, recently announced she was filing for divorce on biblical grounds after finding that her husband had committed adultery. And that just barely scratches the surface.
You’d be forgiven for not knowing about Ken Paxton’s flaws just looking at the numbers. A one-point lead in the first round was cause for celebration among the Cornyn camp, but going into the runoff, public polls show a Paxton lead. Recent polls show the Attorney General winning supporters of the main eliminated candidate, Congressman Wesley Hunt, handily. Other polling claims to show a negligible difference in electability between the two runoff opponents, with the incumbent only performing one point better against Democratic nominee James Talarico than Paxton does. A difference of that scale is relatively consistent with his previous performances in heavily contested statewide races. Cornyn’s charge that he would drag down the ticket is likely true - it’s easier to see someone like Bobby Pulido pulling off an upset if Paxton is the nominee. But a Democratic win in Texas, which voted to the right of Florida in 2024, would be evidence of much bigger problems for Republicans than poor candidate quality.
After Cornyn’s narrow lead in the first round, rumors swirled about a Trump endorsement that still hasn’t materialized. The President posted that it would soon be coming, and that he would be asking the candidate who he does not endorse to drop out. Journalists heard from credible sources that an endorsement of the incumbent was coming, and it was only a matter of time. But Paxton hit back with an ultimatum - pass the Save America Act, which would require suspension of the legislative filibuster, and he will consider dropping out. This flipped the tables and put Paxton back on Trump’s side. Instead of being an obstacle to holding Senate control in the midterms, he was an ally in Trump’s war against the institutional GOP as embodied by John Cornyn. The President has accordingly changed his tune, telling Brian Kilmeade that he still plans to endorse, “but the main thing I have to do is find out who’s going to get the Save America Act approved.” If the bill passes and Trump endorses Cornyn, Paxton may consider how much he’s accomplished already and decide to stay in the race.
In a recent podcast interview with Texas Tribune, conservative talk radio host Mark Davis outlined an argument few have heard articulated. He acknowledges that “using normal Earth logic,” Cornyn being the stronger candidate is obvious. He’s a hair more moderate, and it’s easier to imagine independent voters or the occasional Democrat voting for him. But Davis warned, “this is no ordinary election. I cannot overstate to you the number of Paxton supporters who will. Not. Vote. For. Cornyn. Under. Any. Circumstance.” He says that “the vanquished Cornyn people may be more willing to hold their nose and vote for Ken,” but that defeated Paxton voters would be thinking “go enjoy Senator Talarico, see how that turns out for you.” Asked whether there are Texas Republicans who prefer Paxton to Trump, he answered “of course there are.”
Ken Paxton is seen as an outsider and a fighter against the establishment just like Trump. Their supporters are largely one and the same, and support both for the same reasons. If the President were to endorse Cornyn, Paxton supporters still have the ability to make up their own mind - which is why Trump demanded an immediate withdrawal. If Cornyn wins the runoff, how they behave in a general election will be a wild card - Texas is one of the most difficult states to vote in, and even those who decide to show up to support other Republicans still might leave the top of their ballot blank. Most Cornyn supporters are, in contrast, normal conservatives who believe his argument about electability, ultimately driven by a desire to defeat Democrats. It’s easy to imagine them holding their nose to vote for a Republican who they believe is of poor character, as most of them have three times with Trump and Paxton already.
There is potential for Ken Paxton to implode in a general election. Mediocre but winning electoral performances are no guarantee of future success at the top of a statewide ticket, just ask Roy Moore and Mark Robinson. Scandals could end up determining this race, just like those. But Paxton has proven incredibly resilient in this primary and in his career so far. He survived the biggest onslaught of negative money ever deployed. He’s only one percent behind his opponent, one of the most decorated incumbents in the entire Senate. He was able to stall what seemed to be an imminent Trump endorsement of his opponent with wise political strategy, even turning that news cycle into a win. He’s made his opponent play on his turf, bringing the traditional conservative in line with the insane policy demands of the far-right - and limiting primary voters’ choices to Paxton and Paxton Lite. In a few weeks they’ll get to choose which, and they’re likely to prefer the full flavor option.
The question of which candidate is more electable is ultimately unanswerable, because it’s impossible to observe both scenarios. Nominating Paxton comes with greater risk due to his obvious character issues, but the Cornyn that could emerge from this runoff might be significantly bruised. He could be saddled with unpopular far-right policy promises and unable to run on his real strengths. He could be dealing with an unenthusiastic Republican base and depressed conservative turnout. Regardless, he seems to have been outmaneuvered by scandal-plagued extremist Ken Paxton.
UPDATE 5/16/2026: Since time of writing, Trump has endorsed Paxton. It is too late for Cornyn to withdraw from the ballot, but the runoff is now a mere formality. In his statement, Trump credits Paxton’s support for abolishing the filibuster to pass the Save America Act as his reason for endorsement.
I just heard about the op ed and the subsequent interview w a member of the media asking about the flip flop on the filibuster and he just eventually said “go away.” Oof. I, for one, don’t want to see anyone drop out. I’m here for some sport. Pass the popcorn.