Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has suggested he will mount a primary challenge against Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) in 2026.
Paxton has been a noted critic of Cornyn, especially after the senator threw barbs at him during his impeachment trial. After being acquitted, Paxton has increasingly eyed Cornyn’s Senate seat. In an interview with Punchbowl News, Paxton gave his strongest indication yet that he will primary Cornyn.
“I think it’s just time,” Paxton said of a Cornyn challenge. “He’s had his chance. He hasn’t performed well, and the voters know it. You can go a long time without people paying attention. And they’re paying attention now.”
“I think I can win if I have $20 million,” the Republican attorney general stated, putting forward his fundraising target. “I’ve run these primaries in Texas before. I honestly don’t see how [Cornyn] overcomes his numbers.”
Paxton said he would decide whether or not to run within the next “couple of months.”
In the interview, the attorney general and staunch ally of President Donald Trump zeroed in on the perceived weaknesses of Cornyn, such as his hawkishness on Ukraine.
“I’m going to start calling him ‘Senator Ukraine’ because he’s funding Ukraine more than he’s funding our border, and that’s a problem in Texas,” he said.
Paxton dismissed Cornyn’s recent turn to the right, saying that voters wouldn’t buy it.
“After 23 years he’s finally got a real opponent — potential opponent. He’s gonna do that, right? I mean, no one’s gonna be surprised by that. Voters are not stupid. Like suddenly he veers to the right? We’re less than a year from the primary now. And as soon as it’s over … he goes back to being John Cornyn,” he said.
Paxton has been on a revenge tour after being acquitted in his impeachment trial, which centered on corruption allegations. His foremost target appears to be Cornyn, who openly mocked the attorney general during the scandal. In a Feb. 28, 2024, post on X, he suggested that Paxton was going to prison.
“Hard to run from prison, Ken,” he said in response to a post from Paxton saying Republicans deserved a better senator.
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Paxton told the outlet he plans to talk to Trump about who he will endorse in 2026, believing he will be chosen. Still, he pointed to data on Corny’s popularity in suggesting that he may not even need the president’s endorsement to defeat the incumbent senator.
A polling aggregate by the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin found that Cornyn’s approval rating among Republicans was just 49% in February, one of the lowest of statewide officeholders, compared to Paxton’s 62%. Cornyn’s other Texas colleague, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), has an approval rating of 80% among Republicans.
