Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Tuesday evening that he’s mounting a primary challenge against longtime U.S. Sen. John Cornyn in the 2026 midterm election.
“I’m announcing that I’m running for U.S. Senate against John Cornyn, who apparently is running again for his fifth term, which would put him there three decades. It’s definitely time for a change in Texas,” Paxton told Fox News host Laura Ingraham on her program.
Cornyn, 73, has held his seat since 2002 and has a Heritage Action lifetime score of 64 percent. The Lonestar State’s other Republican Senator Ted Cruz’s lifetime score of 92 percent.
In its vaunted Liberty Scorecard, Conservative review gives Cornyn a failing grade of 54 percent, compared to Cruz’s 88 percent.
“We have another great U.S. senator, Ted Cruz, and it’s time we have another great senator that will actually stand up and fight for Republican values, fight for the values of the people of Texas and also support Trump, Donald Trump, in the areas that he’s focused on in a very significant way,” Paxton said.
A campaign spokesperson for Cornyn defended his voting record and said Texas needs “a battle-tested conservative” like Cornyn.
“During his first term John Cornyn voted with President Trump more than 95 of current Senators, securing the votes for his biggest accomplishments as his Whip,” Team Cornyn wrote on X. “Democrats are trying to destroy President Trump, and he and Texas need a battle-tested conservative who knows how to protect his agenda in the Senate and won’t be outsmarted by Chuck Schumer.”
Cornyn’s campaign went on to call Paxton “a fraud” who is soft on crime.
“He talks tough on crime and then lets crooked progressive Lina Hidalgo off the hook,” Team Cornyn claimed. “He says his impeachment trial was a sham but he didn’t contest the facts in legal filings which will cost the state millions. He says he’s anti-woke but he funnels millions of taxpayer dollars to lawyers who celebrate DEI. And Ken claims to be a man of faith but uses fake Uber accounts to meet his girlfriend and deceive his family.”
“This will be a spirited campaign and we assure Texans they will have a real choice when this race is over,” the spokesperson added.
Paxton, a staunch ally of President Trump, started out in Texas politics as a state representative in 2003, and was elected to the Texas Senate in 2013. He was first elected Texas Attorney General in 2015.
Paxton survived an impeachment effort in 2023, when a majority of Republicans in the Texas House of Representatives voted to impeach him on 16 charges filed against him. In the House vote, 60 Republicans and all 61 Democrats voted in favor of impeachment while 23 Republicans voted against it.
Paxton was acquitted in the state Senate, where a two-thirds majority of 21 state senators was needed to convict him and remove him from office.
“The sham impeachment coordinated by the Biden Administration with liberal House Speaker Dade Phelan and his kangaroo court has cost taxpayers millions of dollars, disrupted the work of the Office of Attorney General and left a dark and permanent stain on the Texas House,” Paxton said in a statement at the time. “The weaponization of the impeachment process to settle political differences is not only wrong, it is immoral and corrupt.”
In his first interview after the acquittal, Paxton told Tucker Carlson that the Lone Star State’s “controlled” Republican House Speaker Dade Phelan had helped the Biden regime orchestrate the effort to remove him.
Paxton said the Biden Justice Department likely went to Democrats with their impeachment scheme and the Democrats told Phelan they wanted him out. He alleged that Phelan is basically “controlled by the Democrats” and had to “deliver” what they wanted to stay in power.
“I don’t think he particularly has an ideology. He’s like, ‘I want to stay in power. I’ve cut this deal to be Speaker with Democrats,’” Paxton explained at the time.
So far, only one Democrat has jumped into the race, former Rep. Colin Allred, a former NFL player. Allred sought to unseat Cruz in the 2024 election and lost by nearly 9 percentage points.
In 2020, Cornyn’s last Senate primary, he won in a landslide victory of 76 percent of the vote.
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