Are Democrats ready to take back Congress?
Early campaign events suggest that the Democratic Party may regain ground. What it means for Trump and the fight for control of Congress.
- Incumbent Texas Sen. John Cornyn faces a tough primary challenge from the right from Rep. Wesley Hunt and Attorney General Ken Paxton.
- Experts say the race is likely to head to a run-off in May, as no candidate is expected to receive more than 50% of the vote.
- Former President Donald Trump has yet to endorse a candidate in the race, a move that could have a major impact on the outcome.
EL PASO, Texas – Texas is pitting conservatives against the insurgent right, with Senate Republicans doing everything they can to protect incumbent John Cornyn’s career and ensure the red state is taken off the map for the 2026 midterm elections.
Mr. Cornyn, 74, is considered a powerhouse in Lone Star State politics, but he has been beaten by two aggressive, populist-leaning challengers: U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt and scandal-plagued Attorney General Ken Paxton, who embodies the spirit of “Make America Great Again.”
For conservative voters, some issues seem to be a higher priority than others. It’s about keeping Democrats from taking control of the U.S. Senate.
“If you look at who’s on the Democratic side, they’re definitely extreme liberals. I mean, extreme,” Rick Bonato, a retired veterinarian from El Paso, told USA TODAY Network.
Ed Solomon, 78, who runs a small gun shop out of his home in El Paso, agreed. He warned that if Democrats win this fall, the U.S. could be “lost forever” and turned into a “Third World country” because of the political imbalance.
Both acknowledged that Cornyn, who has been criticized by MAGA critics for being too cozy with Democrats and for criticizing President Trump in the past, is most likely to win in November.
Solomon said Paxton has too much “baggage,” citing bribery charges and marital drama, and said Hunt lacks the name recognition to pull off a victory.
“We need to keep him there for at least one more term,” he said. “He has the best voting record of over 95% on conservative issues. I think he’s done a very good job in that regard.”
“About a third of Texas Republican primary voters don’t really like John Cornyn. They never did, or at least they never did in the Trump era,” Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University in Houston, said of the four-term incumbent.
“If Ken Paxton wasn’t so deeply flawed as a human being, if you had a flawless, credible MAGA candidate, Cornyn would be dead in the water and we really wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
Most experts think Republican runoff elections in Texas are inevitable
Paxton has faced multiple controversies in his political and personal life over the years, starting with his impeachment in 2023 by the Republican-controlled Texas House on bribery charges for allegedly hiring a woman with whom he had an affair and using his office to benefit a real estate developer who allegedly helped renovate the attorney general’s home.
The state Senate then acquitted him after a two-week trial.
The 63-year-old attorney general made headlines again last year when his wife, state lawmaker Angela Paxton, announced on the X show that the two were divorcing on “biblical grounds” after nearly 40 years of marriage.
“I believe marriage is a sacred contract and have seriously pursued reconciliation,” she said. “However, given recent discoveries, I do not believe that remaining married is honoring God or loving me, my children, or Ken.”
Paxton’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment.
But those issues didn’t prevent Paxton from gaining a slim margin in the March 3 race, even as Mr. Cornyn and his allies spent millions of dollars airing the attorney general’s dirty laundry. For example, Real Clear Politics’ average of recent polls shows Mr. Paxton receiving 30% of the vote, followed by Mr. Cornyn with 28% and Mr. Hunt with 20%.
Mr. Paxton has sought to overcome these scandals by emphasizing his lawsuit against the Biden administration and his support for Mr. Trump. He has also shown support from his daughter, who defended him in a Feb. 26 op-ed and appeared in a recent 30-second spot in which she praised him as a man who “loves God” and praised his family.
Many experts and strategists predict that if no candidate receives more than 50% support, the race will move to a runoff on May 26th.
Matt Makowiak, a senior adviser and Republican strategist for the Cornyn campaign, told USA TODAY that the senator “absolutely believes that Ken Paxton is unfit for office,” which largely explains why the Republican National Senatorial Committee took the unusual step of intervening in the primary against Paxton.
While defending Mr. Cornyn’s record, it ran a profane ad accusing Mr. Paxton of “sleeping with a married mother of seven” and calling him a “wife-cheating cheater.”
“He has lied to staff, lied to taxpayers and lied to his own family, all while lining his own pockets in public office,” Makowiak said. “We have a plan to win this election and we are implementing it.”
Hunt, who represents a northwest Houston suburb in Congress, is a latecomer to the race and is only in third place in the polls. But Mr. Cornyn and Mr. Paxton increased spending against him in the final stages, suggesting he was too close for comfort.
For example, one of Cornyn’s spots, published in February, criticized Hunt for losing the vote in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary in favor of Hillary Clinton.
Hunt hopes to be an alternative option for a younger generation of Texas Republicans who are married to Trump but have lost faith in Cornyn and believe Paxton is too toxic.
He has largely avoided direct attacks on the attorney general, but in an interview with USA TODAY, the former Apache helicopter pilot acknowledged that it will be difficult for voters to ignore Paxton’s issues, such as his 2013 Texas court case in which he was forced to return $1,000 in pens stolen by another attorney.
“They are a distraction, I would say that,” Hunt said. “Those are certainly issues that can be used against him. This is why I’m running because I’m a clean person. I don’t have any of those issues.”
Other longtime Texas Republicans agree that Mr. Paxton’s scandal may be too much for more moderate voters to bear in the general election, with Rep. Jasmine Crockett or state Rep. James Talarico on the Democratic side.
“If Mr. Paxton were our candidate, (Democrats) would grill him on personal issues,” Ray Baca, former chairman of the El Paso County Republican Party, said in an interview. “I think that will resonate with some moderate voters.”
What big sin did Cornyn commit for conservatives?
Democrats are enjoying touting the idea that a Paxton win would help Texas as the primary battle between Crockett and Talarico unfolds.
But more sober pundits and analysts argue that the real problem with Cornyn losing the primary is that Senate Republicans will have to spend millions more defending Texas, instead of investing in defending Republican seats in battleground states like Maine and North Carolina, or trying to flip Democratic seats in Georgia and Michigan.
Mr. Hunt, a 44-year-old Iraq war veteran, told USA TODAY that Mr. Cornyn was in a bind because he was the Republican Party’s chief negotiator on a 2022 gun safety package supported by former President Joe Biden. Looking ahead to the 2024 election, he also said, “The era of Trump is over.”
“If you understand what the primary voters and the people here in Texas want…you’ll know better,” Hunt said. “That’s absolutely not true.”
But Makowiak told USA TODAY that the senator is “widely considered the most capable” of the senators in Congress who have supported President Trump’s policies. He blames the incumbent’s problems on a wealth of misinformation and said he is focused on educating voters about how he has led conservative reforms, including funding for the border wall.
Makowiak said there is “no question” that Cornyn is the most likely Republican candidate as Democrats seek to flip the Senate.
Texas: ‘He’s in danger’: President Trump hasn’t endorsed yet
Texas is considered by many to be a solidly red state, with no Democratic senator since 1988 and no governor from the same party since 1995. Trump carried the state by about 16 points in 2024, but Democrats regularly tout it as a potential upset.
Trump’s voice still matters more than anyone else’s in the Republican primary. However, Texas has not yet chosen a candidate.
“I’m taking it very seriously. You know, my problem is that I’m friendly with all of them,” Trump said in a Feb. 1 chat with reporters. “Those are the hard ones. I like all of them, all three. But you’ll see in a moment, right? They say the person I support will win, and that’s probably true.”
President Trump supports 14 of the 17 Republican senators up for election this year, but not Cornyn.
Mr. Hunt noted that Mr. Trump is not alone in refusing to express support for Mr. Cornyn, nor have other key Republican figures, such as Texas Governor Greg Abbott.
“These are people who have known John Cornyn for decades and don’t want to touch him with a 10-foot pole because they think he’s a nuisance in the Texas Republican primary.”
The congressman declined to comment on whether he had asked President Trump for his approval, but added that the president wants to “see what happens (with us) and ultimately get support.”
Meanwhile, Trump returned to promoting his economic policies after his February 24 State of the Union address in Texas, his first stop. All three candidates reportedly attended the event, but Cornyn was notable for riding with the president on Air Force One.
During a rally in Corpus Christi, Texas, the president once again praised all three candidates.
In an earlier meeting with reporters, when asked if he had decided who he would support for President Trump, he said: “Absolutely.” Will he share? “No,” said the president.
Jones, a professor at Rice University, said Cornyn must beat Trump to survive. If that doesn’t happen by the March 3 election, the longtime senator and his allies will have to pivot ahead of an expected May 26 runoff.
“Mr. Cornyn needs to build a strong case against the president,” Jones said. “And one of the elements of that is to finish as close to Paxton as possible so that we limit the daylight between them as much as possible.”
Mr. Cornyn has already telegraphed that there will be a tougher fight if Mr. Paxton is the final two, telling Politico that a “harrowing experience” awaits the Texas attorney general after March 3.
A Republican operative close to Cornyn’s campaign, who spoke on condition of anonymity to speak freely, told USA TODAY that senior Republicans, top Senate leaders and former Trump campaign advisers are likely to lobby Trump on behalf of the senators with the message that “now is the time to put Texas to bed for a Senate majority” before the runoff elections.
Republican Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska recently told USA TODAY that Trump’s lack of support for Cornyn “puts him in danger of losing Texas.”
Adam Powell of the El Paso Times, part of the USA TODAY Network, reports.
Contributors: Francesca Chambers, Zach Anderson
