DALLAS (AP) \u2014 The mess in Texas may be just beginning.<\/p>\n
Four-term Sen. John Cornyn<\/a> and his allies spent nearly $70 million to survive the first round of the party\u2019s nomination fight on Tuesday. He was slightly ahead of conservative firebrand Ken Paxton<\/a>, the state attorney general, with more votes still being counted on Wednesday.<\/p>\n Both now advance to a May 26 runoff election<\/a> that Republicans fear could be even uglier and more expensive than the first contest.<\/p>\n \u201cIt’s judgment day for Ken Paxton,\u201d Cornyn said on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n But whether any level of attacks can stop Paxton \u2014 who has long been shadowed by allegations of corruption<\/a> and infidelity \u2014 remains unclear, especially as he fashions himself as the kind of Make America Great Again warrior President Donald Trump needs in Washington.<\/p>\n Paxton was defiant when speaking to a few hundred supporters at a Dallas hotel ballroom, a far different scene than Cornyn’s small press conference.<\/p>\n \u201cWe just sent a message, loud and clear, to Washington,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are not going to go quietly, and we are not going to let you buy the seat.\u201d<\/p>\n Republicans are sweating the runoff because the 83-day sprint takes place as operatives in both major political parties acknowledge that Democrats have an unusually solid chance of winning a Senate seat in Texas this year, something that hasn’t happened in nearly four decades.<\/p>\n Democrats nominated state Rep. James Talarico<\/a>, who Republicans immediately attacked as a far-left extremist \u2014 even though they privately consider the 36-year-old Christian progressive to be a stronger general election candidate than his primary opponent, Rep. Jasmine Crockett<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Texas contest is playing out as Trump fights to maintain control of Congress for his final two years in the White House. Republicans are more confident about keeping their majority in the Senate than the House, but a competitive race in Texas could scramble the map, or at least consume resources that the party needs in more competitive states like North Carolina, Maine, Ohio and Alaska.<\/p>\n Republican leaders in Washington insist that Cornyn has the best shot, especially after he finished ahead of Paxton in Tuesday’s primary, with U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt finishing a distant third and conceding. Cornyn’s campaign argued that a runoff wouldn’t even be necessary if it wasn’t for \u201cWesley Hunt’s vanity campaign.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPaxton\u2019s problems aren\u2019t just an issue in a Republican primary; they also threaten to put the Senate seat at risk due to his lack of strength against Democrat nominee Talarico,” a memo from Cornyn’s team said.<\/p>\n But Paxton and his allies are showing no signs of backing down.<\/p>\n \u201cThe D.C. establishment has done its job: it rallied around its wounded incumbent, opened the fundraising spigot, and flooded the airwaves. But the results, the data, and the reality on the ground all point to the same conclusion: John Cornyn has no viable path to the Republican nomination,\u201d the pro-Paxton Lone Star PAC wrote in a memo. \u201cCornyn should suspend his campaign, concede the nomination to Ken Paxton, and refuse to allow another $100+ million in Republican resources to be burned in a race that is already decided.\u201d<\/p>\n The only person who might be able to forestall the intraparty fight, or at least limit its fallout, is Trump. But the president has declined to endorse a candidate<\/a> in the primary, describing all of them as \u201cgreat,\u201d and it was unclear if anything would change in the runoff.<\/p>\n Without Trump’s support, Cornyn made it clear that he would make the case himself. He told reporters that Paxton would be \u201ca dead weight at the top of the ticket for Republicans” in November.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve worked for decades to build the Republican Party, both here in Texas and nationally,\u201d Cornyn said. \u201cI refuse to allow a flawed, self-centered and shameless candidate like Ken Paxton to risk everything we\u2019ve worked so hard to build over these many years.\u201d<\/p>\n Cornyn will face intense fundraising pressure, having already spent so much money in the first round of the primary. Aides said he had some small fundraisers planned but nothing in the days immediately after this week’s vote as he returns to Washington.<\/p>\n In addition, Paxton’s allies are confident that the political landscape will tilt in the attorney general’s favor.<\/p>\n \u201cThe casual and moderate Republican voters who are most likely to support an establishment incumbent are the least likely to return for a runoff,\u201d said the memo from the Lone Star PAC. \u201cThe committed conservative activists who form Paxton\u2019s base are the most likely to show up.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" DALLAS (AP) \u2014 The mess in Texas may be just beginning. Four-term Sen. John Cornyn and his allies spent nearly $70 million to survive the first round of the party\u2019s nomination fight on Tuesday. He was slightly ahead of conservative firebrand Ken Paxton, the state attorney general, with more votes still being counted on Wednesday. … Continue reading Republicans brace for an ugly fight in the Texas Senate runoff between Cornyn and Paxton<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2851],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1485465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-state-news-archive"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-06 10:18:59","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1485465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1485465"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1485465\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1485642,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1485465\/revisions\/1485642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1485465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1485465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1485465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}