Barbs between Ken Paxton,d John Cornyn raise prospect of 2026 clash
DALLAS — Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s recent success in ousting several Republican House incumbents may foreshadow a more ferocious political fight targeting longtime U.S. Sen. John Cornyn.
Paxton has deliberately and conspicuously attacked Cornyn as too moderate for today’s Texas GOP — a tactic in the March 5 primaries that helped the attorney general unseat eight Republicans who voted last year to impeach him and force seven others into a May 28 runoff.
A darling of his party’s most strident hard-right activists who has a powerful ally in former President Donald Trump, Paxton increasingly appears to be looking toward entering the 2026 primary in hopes of toppling fellow Republican Cornyn.
“Super Tuesday showed there is a large base of Paxton-friendly voters who not only admire him but want his kind of unapologetic aggressive conservatism in the United States Senate,” said conservative radio talk show host Mark Davis, who has interviewed Paxton numerous times on his Dallas-based show.
Paxton suggested a willingness to take on Cornyn during an interview shortly after the Senate cleared him on impeachment charges in September.
“I think it’s time for somebody to step up and run against this guy,” Paxton told former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, adding that when it came to future plans, “everything is on the table for me.”
More recently, Paxton criticized Cornyn’s support for a bipartisan foreign aid package and dismissed Cornyn’s aspiration to lead Republicans in the Senate, saying the party deserved better.
Cornyn’s quest to become Senate Republican leader is a career-defining goal that could prove pivotal to his legacy, particularly if he has to fend off a primary challenge from Paxton that could end his long career in politics.
“Cornyn is one of the last of the great statesmen,” said Jeremy Bradford, former executive director of the Tarrant County Republican Party. “It would be good to have the majority leader in your state, but that’s a purely political calculation. Many of the grass-roots folks are more ideological than pragmatic, and that could have an impact in a primary.”
Plano-based Republican consultant Vinny Minchillo, who worked on Utah Sen. Mitt Romney’s presidential campaigns, believes Cornyn can withstand a Paxton challenge.
“He’s won statewide at the state level and won statewide at the federal level,” Minchillo said, noting Cornyn also has been elected as attorney general and a Texas Supreme Court justice. “He would be an incredibly tough candidate to beat, and I just feel like Paxton’s grass-roots likability has
its limits.”
A Cornyn-paxton primary would be a clash of Texas Republican titans, but a lot can happen in the next two years to affect such a contest.
Paxton is maneuvering through several legal minefields, most notably a Department of Justice investigation into many of the allegations aired during his impeachment and a trial set for mid-april in Houston on felony charges of securities fraud tied to private business deals from 2011.
He’s also fighting the State Bar of Texas, which is seeking a reprimand over allegations that Paxton lied to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2020 when he tried to overturn Trump’s election defeats in four states by saying Texas had proof of widespread voting fraud.
Legal problems aside, some analysts believe now is the best time for Paxton to move against Cornyn.
“You have to strike while the iron is hot,” said University of Houston political scientist Brandon Rottinghaus. “For him (Paxton) to delay means that you can see a dozen other issues pop up in this political world.”
Cornyn and Paxton have recently traded barbs on social media — exchanges that have fueled speculation about a 2026 political showdown.
When Cornyn announced he would run to replace Sen. Mitch Mcconnell of Kentucky as Republican leader, Paxton lashed out in a post on X, formerly Twitter, saying, “Republicans deserve better in their next leader and Texans deserve another conservative senator.”
Paxton added that Cornyn would have a tough time being “an effective leader since he is anti-trump, anti-gun, and will be focused on his highly competitive primary campaign in 2026.”
Cornyn replied: “Hard to run from prison, Ken.”
The clash followed an earlier scuffle over funding for foreign countries.
Paxton criticized Cornyn’s predawn vote for a $95 billion aid package to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan that did not include tougher border security provisions. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-texas, voted against it, but the measure passed with support from 22 GOP senators.
“Unbelievable that Johncornyn would stay up all night to defend other countries borders, but not America,” Paxton posted on X.
Paxton described Cornyn as an “America Last RINO,” or Republican in Name Only, who joined the administration of President Joe Biden “to fund and prioritize foreign wars over the national security at the southern border.”
Cornyn shot back that Paxton should stop promoting Russian talking points in its war with Ukraine.
“Ken, your criminal defense lawyers are calling to suggest you spend less time pushing Russian propaganda and more time defending long-standing felony charges against you in Houston, as well as ongoing federal grand jury proceedings in San Antonio that will probably result in further criminal charges,” Cornyn wrote on X.
Even before the House impeachment, Cornyn was one of the few Republicans who criticized Paxton.
In 2022, as Paxton was seeking a third term as attorney general, Cornyn called his legal entanglements embarrassing.
“This is the chief law enforcement officer of the state of Texas, and it’s a source of embarrassment to me that that has been unresolved,” Cornyn said at the time. “As a former attorney general myself, I’m embarrassed by what we’re having to deal with.”
Paxton, who has praised Cruz as the state’s lone conservative senator, responded by saying he could never relate to “Cornyn’s ability to compromise with radical Senate Democrats in D.C.”
Rottinghaus said the verbal sparring indicates Paxton sees Cornyn as fair game in 2026.
“He’s been hinting at this for years, and private talk among Republicans is that this is a race that’s been a long time coming,” Rottinghaus said. “My sense is that the attorney general’s feeling his political oats. He sees what happened in the primary and thinks that he controls some significant portion of the Republican primary electorate.”
Paxton has risen from a business and estate-planning lawyer to become one of Texas’ most influential Republicans. He served 10 years in the Texas House and two years in the Senate before winning the 2014 race for attorney general.
Tougher roads may lie ahead. A federal grand jury in San Antonio is reviewing Paxton’s ties to Austin real estate investor Nate Paul, who is under federal indictment for bank and wire fraud. Former top officials in the attorney general’s office accused Paxton of misusing the agency’s power to help Paul, and the allegations formed the foundation of articles of impeachment approved by the Texas House. After a two-week trial in September, the Senate voted largely along party lines to acquit Paxton.
A federal indictment or state conviction for securities fraud could affect Paxton’s ability to target Cornyn.
“It would test whether he could keep his base together to challenge Cornyn,” Davis said. “As attorney general, he’s so popular and so admired by conservatives that they’re not hanging on every word about his legal problems. But if he’s convicted of some things, beating Cornyn becomes a super uphill climb.”
Although Cornyn has been booed during several appearances at state Republican conventions, where the delegates are far more conservative than the broader Texas electorate, the senator has several strengths to rely upon.
Cornyn is a prolific fundraiser and the veteran of seven successful campaigns for statewide office. In 2020, he received more votes than any non-judicial candidate in the history of Texas. The nearly 6 million votes were more than any Senate candidate in American history.
The state’s senior senator was first elected in 2002, when former Texas Gov. George W. Bush was president. One of Cornyn’s campaign pledges involved getting Bush’s judicial appointments through the Senate.
He has weathered the tea party movement and the emergence of Trump. He rose to become his party’s whip, corralling votes of other Republican senators. Now Cornyn is in the running to be his party’s Senate leader.
“Cornyn is still very, very popular,” Minchillo said. “If John Cornyn is the Senate majority or minority leader, depending on how it works out, I think that gives him even more clout.”
Cornyn hasn’t had a serious test in a GOP primary, but numerous polls of Republican primary voters show him lagging in popularity behind other statewide leaders.
“Cornyn is hovering above a real political problem,” Rottinghaus said. “He is right on the cusp of a full-scale campaign against his candidacy.”
Trump and Paxton have been allies for years. Trump endorsed Paxton in 2022 and supported Paxton-backed candidates in the March primary. As president, Trump praised the attorney general for leading several legal fights to defend his White House policies.
Paxton has been a frequent advocate for Trump’s policies and priorities in appearances on conservative media. After the 2020 election, in addition to filing a Supreme Court challenge to Biden victories in four states, Paxton spoke at the Jan. 6 rally that preceded the Capitol riot in 2021.
A Trump presidential victory in November would give Paxton an ally in the White House and a potent political weapon against Cornyn.
“Ken Paxton’s biggest strength is that he’s got allies. That’s the thing that really makes it powerful,” Rottinghaus said. “There are serious concerns about his political skills. and he’s got liabilities in terms of his legal problems, but the real value is he brings the allies to the fight.”
Said Davis: “It will be interesting to see how well Cornyn fits into a second Trump term.”
A Biden victory could weaken Trump’s influence among Republicans. “Trump’s endorsement is an incredibly powerful thing,” Minchillo said. “Two years from now, hard to say.”
Former GOP state Sen. Bob Deuell said Paxton would pose a difficult challenge to Cornyn because only a fraction of Republican voters participate in primaries, leaving hard-right conservatives with increased clout.
“The extremism doesn’t bother folks, and that’s what Cornyn will have to deal with in the primary,” Deuell said. “I don’t think Ronald Reagan could get elected today in a Republican primary.”
Even with Texas Republicans focused on critical runoff elections in May and presenting a united front in the November election, many eyes are on a potential Cornyn-paxton showdown. “We’re not even done with 2024 and everybody is really interested in 2026,” Davis said. “This rodeo is on, and they clearly are going to be going at each other moving forward.”