Senate Republicans are bracing for an expensive general election in Texas as the state’s scandal-plagued attorney general positions himself to push out four-term incumbent Sen. John Cornyn.
Cornyn faces Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in a primary runoff Tuesday, with public polling favoring Paxton. Senate Republicans have fervently backed Cornyn in the primary, saying he would be easier to defend in a general election against the Democratic nominee, state Rep. James Talarico.
Paxton has faced allegations of corruption, financial malfeasance and infidelity. He has also struggled to keep up with Cornyn or Talarico — both prodigious fundraisers — in raising money. Cornyn asserts that Senate Republicans would have to divert essential cash from other competitive races to propel Paxton if he became the nominee.
“It would be hundreds of millions of dollars, and there’s still a good chance he would lose,” Cornyn told supporters Thursday at a campaign stop in Houston.
The GOP is trying to defend a 53-47 Senate majority in the fall midterm elections.
Republicans are putting up considerable funds to hold on to seats in Maine, Ohio and North Carolina, where Democrats are investing tens of millions of dollars. Republicans also have their sights on winning Democratic seats in Georgia and Michigan.
“We have 24 seats up this time. The Democrats have only nine, so we’ve got a lot more ground to defend,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) told reporters last week, adding that he was optimistic about keeping the majority. “As I’ve said, when it comes to winning elections, it starts with quality candidates.”
Statewide campaigns in Texas are abnormally costly. The state has more than 31 million residents dispersed across nearly 270,000 square miles and two of the country’s most expensive media markets — Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth. The 2024 race between Sen. Ted Cruz and Democratic Rep. Colin Allred drew more than $210 million in ad spending, according to AdImpact.
Democratic candidates have a history of raising large amounts of money from outside the state, buoyed by liberal donors who view Texas as the perennial one that got away. Talarico has raised more than $27 million in the first three months of the year, more than most Senate candidates raise in their entire campaigns.
Paxton, by comparison, has raised just over $7 million and reported having roughly $2 million in the bank at the beginning of May. Lone Star Liberty PAC, the super PAC spending the most to support Paxton, reported just over $1.9 million at the beginning of the month.
Cornyn edged ahead of Paxton for a narrow win during the first round of the primary in March. But Paxton has captured the support of the hard-line Republican base, who generally turn out in greater numbers during runoffs. His biggest boost came last week when President Donald Trump endorsed him, despite months of aggressive lobbying by Senate Republicans and Trump’s political team to endorse Cornyn.
“It was the kiss of death for Cornyn,” Rep. Lance Gooden (R-Texas), a Paxton supporter, said of Trump’s endorsement.
Cornyn has never lost an election in Texas and was a pioneer in the 1990s effort to turn the state red. He was the first Republican elected to be the state’s attorney general since Reconstruction and transformed the office into a national force for conservative policy. He also served previously as the second most powerful Republican in the Senate, from 2013 to 2019, under then-Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and launched his own unsuccessful bid to be majority leader in 2024.
That résumé has given him a host of endorsements from the state’s Republican establishment, including former governor Rick Perry, former senator Phil Gramm and Ross Perot Jr.
The support has also translated into money. Cornyn’s time in Senate leadership allowed him to cultivate a rich roster from Texas’s deep-pocketed donor class and from Wall Street. Perry’s Lone Star Freedom Project super PAC spent more than $17 million on ads supporting Cornyn. One Nation, a dark-money group close to GOP leadership, spent more than $10 million supporting him.
Cornyn has also tapped into those donor pools for his fellow Republicans. He’s raised more than $414 million for his party over his years in office.
Matt Mackowiak, a spokesperson for the senator, cast doubt that all of those donors would continue giving to the Republican ticket without Cornyn at the top.
“His supporters appreciate the way he conducts himself,” Mackowiak said. “You can’t just transfer relationships built over two decades.”
Cornyn warned that having Paxton at the top of the ticket would not only endanger Republicans running in other Senate races; he would also be an “albatross” for Republicans running for the House in Texas. Democrats agree.
“Republicans made their bed a long time ago when they tied themselves to an unpopular agenda of higher prices that’s crushing Texans every day,” Madison Andrus, a spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said in a statement. “But if they want to nominate another extremist to dig themselves even deeper in the hole, they can be our guest.”
A spokesman for Paxton declined to comment.
The Senate primary contest has already seen more money spent than any other in American history. Cornyn and has supporters in the Senate have spent more than $90 million ahead of Tuesday, according to AdImpact.
Other marquee races have ramped up spending ahead of Tuesday’s runoff. Rep. Chip Roy and state Sen. Mayes Middleton are competing over who is more of a hard-line conservative in a bitter runoff to replace Paxton as attorney general.
The Senate Republicans’ campaign arm has been particularly vocal in its disdain for Paxton. Joanna Rodriguez, the group’s communications director, called Paxton’s behavior “truly repulsive and disgusting” in July.
The group did not respond when asked what its role would look like in the general election if Paxton became the party’s nominee. The Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC affiliated with Republican leadership, did not spend in the primary and has maintained its neutrality going into the runoff.
Gooden, the pro-Paxton congressman, said it would be a major blow to Republicans’ standing among the base if they don’t all rally behind Paxton if he is the nominee, after spending so much money on Cornyn.
“If they’re not willing to pony up that same amount or more to keep this seat in Republican hands, then I question their commitment to the Republican values that they’ve been preaching these last several months,” Gooden said.
Cornyn said this month that he will “support the ticket” in the general election, regardless of who wins the runoff.
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