Longtime Sen. John Cornyn and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton are projected to be heading to a costly runoff to earn the Republican Senate nomination in Texas after no one won more than 50% of the vote on Tuesday.
Rep. Wesley Hunt, who entered the race late but whose candidacy represented a mounting challenge for Cornyn, came in third, disqualifying him from the runoff. Voters will take to the polls again on May 26.
“I refuse to allow a flawed, self-centered and shameless candidate like Ken Paxton to risk everything we’ve worked so hard to build over these many years, there is simply too much at stake in this midterm election for our state and for our country,” Cornyn said at a press conference after polls closed Tuesday night.
Cornyn added that Paxton would represent “dead weight” at the top of the ticket, questioning his opponent’s ability to win against a Democratic candidate in November.
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At his own election night party, Paxton turned the ire back on Cornyn.
“Together with your support, we just sent a message loud and clear to Washington: We are not going to go quietly, and we are not going to let you buy this seat,” he told his crowd.
The runoff will be a highly anticipated matchup after President Donald Trump declined to endorse a candidate in the first round of the primary. Cornyn, who is 74 and has served four terms in the Senate, has spotlighted his experience as a bipartisan dealmaker and member of leadership throughout the campaign.
Though he has occasionally butted heads with Trump, Cornyn is backed by the Senate’s Republican leadership, who are focused on maintaining the party’s majority in the upper chamber.
Defending Cornyn in a runoff election could draw money away from Senate races in several other key states where Republicans are focused on fending off serious Democratic challengers, including in Ohio and North Carolina.
And some GOP leaders are worried that a win for Paxton could jeopardize what has historically been a safe Republican seat. It wasn’t immediately certain Tuesday night who the winner will face, though, with the Democratic primary race tight between Rep. Jasmine Crockett and state Rep. James Talarico.
Paxton, who has spent the campaign arguing he’d be better able to execute Trump’s agenda in Congress, has close ties to the president and is aligned with the party’s MAGA base. He was endorsed by Trump-aligned PAC Turning Point Action and has weathered a number of personal and political scandals, including being subject to articles of impeachment for alleged bribery in 2023.
Paxton rose to national prominence by suing the Biden administration over issues like abortion, immigration and vaccine mandates, positioning Texas in the center of some of the biggest culture war fights of the last decade.
Trump acknowledged both Cornyn and Paxton in a speech in Corpus Christi on Friday, calling them both “great” but declining to select a favorite.
“They’re in a little race together,” Trump said. “It’ll be an interesting one, right? They’re both great people, too. Thank you both very much. I appreciate it.”
Hunt, a two-term congressman, ran on a pledge to serve only two terms in the Senate –– a dig at Cornyn’s long run. Hunt is also a close ally of Trump’s and had hoped to appeal to the largely Trump-aligned Republican base in Texas without the baggage of Paxton’s political scandals.
The primary is already the most expensive in the nation. The National Republican Senatorial Committee and outside political groups have spent more than $70 million to defend Cornyn –– and Republican-aligned groups have just spent just under $100 million. That number is only expected to grow in a runoff.
“Almost every time we talk, we talk Texas,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters on Thursday of his conversations with Trump about Cornyn.
The runoff election is likely to represent the newest challenge for Republicans as they battle over control of the party’s future.
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