Wesley Hunt won’t win Senate race, but he alters Cornyn, Paxton plans | Opinion
I had the chance to ask Sen. John Cornyn last week about the prospect of U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt joining the Republican primary race for his seat. Hunt’s ads have blanketed statewide TV for months, and I asked the senator about the possible impact of a second challenger coming after him.
“I like Wesley,” he replied. “One of the things I hope he’s thinking about is winning that new congressional district that’s been redrawn by the Legislature.”
But Monday morning, Hunt made clear he would leave the even friendlier landscape of the 38th District, where winning was a certainty, to enter a U.S. Senate primary where victory seems the longest of shots.
Questions abound. What is he thinking? Who is affected more by his entry, Cornyn or the already prominent rival, Ken Paxton?
The initial reactions from the Cornyn and Paxton camps differed sharply. While Cornyn’s team began to attack Hunt immediately as an unproven conservative and “a legend in his own mind,” the Paxton camp chose to ooze a comfortable confidence.
“We welcome Wesley Hunt to the race,” an adviser said. “Primaries are good for our party and our voters, and Wesley and General Paxton both know that Texans deserve better than the failed anti-Trump record of John Cornyn.”
But behind that convivial tone, Paxton is no happier than Cornyn at the prospect of a third option for GOP voters. Paxton’s plan was to garner every shred of MAGA-flavored conservative grassroots passion in a crusade that would peak March 3 with a victory over an incumbent who has never come close to losing a primary. That now seems highly unlikely, at least on that night.
However many voters Hunt draws, they will have policy tastes virtually identical to Paxton’s base. That means there is little reason to expect Hunt to poach enough Paxton supporters to actually win, but he can surely dent the Paxton totals enough to prevent the upset of Cornyn.
John Cornyn faces skepticism about allegiance to Trump
But this is no picnic for Cornyn. His positioning as a reliable Trump ally will now be pummeled by two challengers, and one of them is not saddled by personal and ethical baggage. The Cornyn campaign has had two main themes so far: “I am Trump’s best friend” and “Ken Paxton is a horrible person.” It’s hard to know whether the senator is erasing memories of his past Trump skepticism, but there is no evidence that the personal punches at Paxton are landing.
This makes it less likely that Hunt will pile on in that manner. In a radio interview in his Houston back yard, he had praise for Paxton’s record as attorney general but wondered why there have been no Paxton ads to match the barrage of Cornyn messaging all summer. He asserts that Paxton “hasn’t spent a dime,” allowing Cornyn to pull even in polls.
“I can assure you if Ken were fighting back, there wouldn’t be a closing of the gap at all, but the fact of the matter is he’s not,” Hunt said.
That logic is flawed in two ways. First, TV ads may no longer be the prime weapon for modern campaigns. They remain important, but a strong social media megaphone may be at least as vital, and in that space, Paxton has been pasting Cornyn for months as a Trump obstructionist in a phony ally’s clothing. Second, it’s October. Paxton has had no need to bury us in ads half a year before the primary. His main push was always going to be after the holidays, in the 60-day home stretch to March 3, reminding supporters why they have stuck with him and promising a Senate voting record that won’t change after Trump leaves office.
If Hunt starts to chip away at the image of Cornyn’s Trump affinity, it may smoke out some Paxton ad dollars to avoid any erosion of the AG’s mantle as prime Cornyn alternative.
That could mean a festival of triangulation. Paxton will assert that he is the best option for GOP voters who are Cornyn-hesitant. Cornyn will cement his image as a Trump teammate worthy of retention, and Hunt will try to find a way to snag undecided voters lukewarm on Cornyn yet queasy about Paxton’s extracurricular downside.
Wesley Hunt likely has no path to win Texas Senate primary
The landscape can always change, but there is no recognizable path for Hunt to prevail on March 3. There is only a role as spoiler, but whose night might he spoil? Cornyn’s, by joining forces with Paxton in a tag-team assault on his Trump-friendly image? Or Paxton’s, by peeling away some of the MAGA base necessary to a successful challenge?
In either event, a runoff is now likely — but not certain. In Cornyn’s three primaries, he has taken an average of 70% of the votes. If the Paxton challenge was destined to take a sizeable 20-point bite out of that trend, that would still leave Cornyn with a winning margin without a runoff.
So, to summarize: Cornyn is slamming Hunt because he was confident of a one-on-one victory over Paxton. Paxton is welcoming Hunt because he likes the optics (and the math) of a 2-on-1 MAGA dismantling of Cornyn. And Hunt will throw shade at both of his rivals — at Cornyn for policy reasons and at Paxton for strategic reasons, because it is in the Paxton camp where Hunt funds his only mineable support.
The likelihood with five months to the primary is that we are still going to get a Cornyn vs. Paxton tilt, but it will be in a runoff that drags all the way to late May.
Mark Davis hosts a morning radio show in Dallas-Fort Worth on 660-AM and at 660amtheanswer.com. Follow him on X: @markdavis.
