HOUSTON, Feb 27 (Reuters) – With Republicans defending a narrow Senate majority, a messy Texas primary threatens to turn one of the party’s safest seats into an unexpected battleground for control of Congress – a scenario incumbent John Cornyn warns would be the “kiss of death” for Republicans in Texas.
Public opinion polls show Cornyn, 74, a traditional establishment conservative first elected to the Senate in 2002, trailing Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, 63, a populist Trump ally who has built his profile through aggressive legal challenges against Democrats on issues like abortion, transgender rights and voting restrictions.
If Paxton prevails in Tuesday’s party primary, or a May 26 runoff if no candidate wins more than 50% of the vote, he would face a Democratic challenger in the November midterm elections, a race analysts say he could struggle to win because of his sharp ideological positioning and history of scandals.
A Democratic win – a longshot, but still a possibility – would be a political earthquake. Texas is the bedrock of Republican power as California is for Democrats, and no Democrat has won a statewide race there since 1994.
Cornyn has intensified his rhetoric in the final days of the campaign, arguing that nominating Paxton could lead to an “electoral massacre” for Republicans and jeopardize their slim Senate majority.
“Ken Paxton will be the kiss of death for Republicans on the ticket in November of 2026,” the senator told reporters after addressing a small group of supporters outside an organic eatery and sports bar in Houston on February 19.
Paxton accuses his opponent of fear-mongering and says he is confident his track record as state attorney general will help him prevail in November should he win the primary.
“You look at my record, I’ve done more in two weeks for the voters and the constituents of Texas than he’s done in 40 years,” he told reporters after a February 20 rally outside of Houston.
Tuesday’s primary will be one of the most closely watched when Texas, North Carolina and Arkansas formally kick off the 2026 election season as the first states where voters will choose nominees for the midterm contests.
The party that controls the White House historically suffers losses in midterms, and Democrats only need to flip four seats in November to gain control of the Senate for the final two years of Trump’s presidency.
PROXIMITY TO TRUMP
Cornyn and Paxton are in a three-way primary with two-term U.S. Representative Wesley Hunt, 44. Political experts expect the race to be decided in a runoff between Cornyn and Paxton.
The race hinges more on the candidates’ perceived closeness to President Donald Trump than on policy.
At a campaign event on February 18 inside a barbecue restaurant in the eastern Texas city of Nacogdoches, Hunt paused briefly after noticing Trump on a nearby muted television.
“I was with him last week,” he told supporters. “He is a good man.”
All three candidates are Trump allies, but political analysts consider Cornyn the least conservative because of his bipartisanship, Paxton the least electable because of his past controversies and Hunt the least known.
Trump travels to Texas on Friday to deliver a speech on the economy. He has yet to endorse a candidate, a move that could help to sway undecided voters. He told reporters aboard Air Force One earlier this month that he likes and supports “all three of them.”
‘THINKS HE’S BULLETPROOF’
Cornyn is backed by Senate Republican leadership and former Governor Rick Perry. His allies have pumped more than $60 million into the race to try to slow Paxton’s rise.
Cornyn has staked his campaign on the premise that character matters to voters, repeatedly pointing to Paxton’s long list of controversies, including his 2023 impeachment by the Texas House on allegations of misuse of public resources, bribery and abuse of public trust, for which he was acquitted in the state Senate.
“I know he still thinks he’s bulletproof even with all the scandals and the baggage … Well, I guarantee in a general election it will be a dead weight around the neck of Republicans up and down the ticket,” Cornyn told reporters at the Houston campaign stop.
Paxton dismissed Cornyn’s character‑focused attack as political posturing, telling Reuters: “He’s being completely dishonest about his record, and he’s being very dishonest about me.”
State opinion polls show Paxton in the lead, a sign of his appeal among conservative voters. Voters don’t care about scandals like they used to, political analysts say, and conservative voters in Texas want an uncompromising fighter.
Paxton’s aggressive legal campaigns, particularly his high-profile attacks on Texas immigration groups and what he calls illegal voting, have won praise from conservative activists.
Cornyn has built his career on legislative compromise and has worked across the aisle with Democrats. He raised the ire of Trump supporters by saying in 2023 that Trump could not win another election, and earlier by refusing to join efforts in 2021 to overturn former President Joe Biden’s election victory.
His last contest was in 2020, when he won reelection by nearly 10 points, outpacing Trump’s five-and-a-half point win in the state.
TEXAS REPUBLICAN SHIFT
A Paxton win would underscore how much Texas Republican politics has shifted in recent years, analysts said, with candidates aligned with the party’s more hardline wing steadily displacing older, more establishment-oriented Republicans. Trump carried the state by 14 percentage points in the 2024 presidential election.
“If we were talking about the general election, we’d be talking about Cornyn winning comfortably,” said Cal Jillson, a Southern Methodist University political science professor. “But the Republican primary electorate is just such a sliver of the total electorate and so skewed toward MAGA at this point that it gives Paxton a clear advantage.”
Analysts said Paxton has already demonstrated he can win statewide, pointing to his attorney general elections in 2014, 2018, and 2022. But they agree with Cornyn on one point – a Paxton nomination would make the state more competitive and require significant party resources to fend off a Democratic challenger.
Recent polls show Paxton holding the smallest advantage in general election matchups against the Democratic candidates: U.S. Representative Jasmine Crockett and state Representative James Talarico. Representative Hunt has the lowest name recognition in the Republican field but holds the largest lead over Democrats.
(Reporting by Nolan D. McCaskill, editing by Ross Colvin and David Gaffen)
