HOUSTON, TEXAS — Longtime Texas Sen. John Cornyn is in the fight of his political life to win a fifth term. He is facing two conservative primary challengers in a race that has become personal and contentious, and is a proxy for the future of the Republican Party in the Lone Star state.
Cornyn is facing an uphill climb to make it to a runoff, fending off challenges from his longtime Texas rival, Attorney General Ken Paxton, and Rep. Wesley Hunt, a newcomer who entered the race late, but has a fighting chance.
Cornyn might not even make it to the next step.
The primary, which is March 3, is intensifying in the homestretch, with the three candidates running completely different campaigns to convince voters they are the best for the six-year job.
Cornyn, 74, has served in the Senate since 2002, and is running on his bipartisan record and leadership chops. Paxton, 63, has faced his own legal troubles in the state and has close ties to President Donald Trump. Paxton is focusing on ousting Cornyn specifically for a job he said he can do better to execute Trump’s agenda.
Hunt, a Black Republican and two-term congressman, is 44 and emphasizing the need for congressional term limits, a poke at Cornyn’s age, and a message that everyone’s time in office must eventually come to an end. Hunt has pledged to serve two terms if he wins the Senate seat.
“Could you imagine term-limiting yourself to 12 years?” Hunt told NOTUS in an interview after a campaign stop in Nacogdoches, Tex. “That’s a long time. Like do your job, do it for 12 years and get out. “If you stay around long enough, you hang around long enough, you end up in a position like John Cornyn is in right now. The party has left him. Clearly.”
Meanwhile, Cornyn’s message about experience might not be the most appealing one for Republican primary voters in Texas.
“We need candidates who can produce results, and I think I’ve demonstrated working in a team effort, rolling up my sleeves, working through the maze of Washington, D.C., to be able to actually accomplish important things for our state,” Cornyn said in a pitch to voters in Austin, Tex., last week. “These are serious times, and it calls for serious leadership and serious people who want to solve problems, who understand this is not about them. This is about us. This is about our state and about our nation.”
The reality is even if Cornyn overtakes Hunt in the race, he will likely need to keep fighting Paxton in a run-off, since a candidate needs 50% plus one vote to prevail in a primary. An Emerson College survey from January showed Paxton at 27% support with primary voters, Cornyn at 26% and Hunt at 16%, while the latest RealClearPolitics found Paxton leading 30%, Cornyn at 28% and Hunt at 20%. The runoff is scheduled for May 26.
The three politicians crisscrossed across the state last week, hobnobbing with voters who are casting their ballots in early voting before the primary. While Hunt has been campaigning in Texas for weeks — to the dismay of his GOP colleagues in the House — Paxton and Cornyn held campaign events for the first time last week to start convincing voters to support them as early voting began Feb. 17 across the state.
None of them minced words about their opponents when making their pitches to voters.
“A lot of people have asked me, ‘Why are you running for U.S. Senate? Why don’t you just stay as attorney general?’ I’ve done this for now three terms, and I felt like each time I had a mission,” Paxton said at a stop in Magnolia, Tex., referencing fighting former presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden in Texas. “John Cornyn has asked for a fifth term. A fifth term would be 30 years in the U.S. Senate. How many senators in Texas history have run for five terms? The answer is none.”
“This guy has not done his job,” Paxton said about Cornyn.
Trump’s role – or lack thereof – in the Texas primary has overshadowed the race and made it one of the buzziest Republican primaries across the country. The president, who has budded heads with Cornyn in the past, has not endorsed him as the incumbent. Instead, Trump spoke positively about the three candidates recently. The president remains incredibly popular in Texas, especially with GOP primary voters, and has influence in who could be in the runoff election.
“I’d be proud to have the president’s endorsement,” Cornyn told reporters in Austin when asked about Trump refusing to take sides. “It’s his call.”
At a campaign event later in the week, Paxton made it clear he was aligned with Trump and dismissed concerns about a nonendorsement.
“I’m a supporter of President Trump,” Paxton told reporters. “It’s his decision. I think it’s great that so far he’s doing what he’s done. He’s doing what he thinks is best for the country, and he hasn’t made an endorsement. I’m fine with that. I’ve spoken to him in the past. I don’t want to reveal my conversations with the president.”
Hunt used his time on the campaign trail to tout his relationship with Trump, who he campaigned for in several states during the 2024 presidential election. On the lack of a Trump endorsement, Hunt said: “He doesn’t want to pick losers, and he knows that a 24-year incumbent that’s struggling like this after spending a Powerball ticket is rough.”
Hunt was referencing how much the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and outside political groups, have spent in the effort to defend Cornyn in the primary, totaling more than $60 million, making it the most expensive primary in the 2026 midterms.
“He should have retired,” Hunt said about Cornyn. “To the establishment: if I weren’t in this race right now, Ken Paxton wins this thing without a runoff, if it were just him versus John. It’s over.”
On Cornyn’s comments calling his run a “vanity project,” Hunt said: “They can blame me, get mad at me all they want … at least right now, we have an option of having somebody who’s younger, somebody that’s not going to be on social security in the next few years, somebody who is a combat veteran.”
One undecided Texas voter saw flaws with Cornyn.
“He’s been there 24 years. It is a long time. Most people don’t stay in their employment that long,” Betty Shinn told NOTUS in an interview at a Hunt event in Nacogdoches, Tex.
Paxton’s history of legal drama in the state deterred her from backing the attorney general. “He was not good for Texas,” Shinn said. “He got in trouble here. He was almost impeached.”
If Cornyn fails to make a runoff or ultimately loses a primary in his home state, after serving in Senate Republican leadership and in the upper chamber for more than two decades, it would be a massive upset.
When asked what would happen if Cornyn loses, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry told reporters in Austin: “I have no idea. What are we going to do if aliens come down before the election? I would rather not address that until I have to.”
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