Texas Senate showdown: Ken Paxton vs. John Cornyn could come down to Trump loyalty | Opinion
John Cornyn has been a reliable Texas conservative across more than 30 years and three statewide offices. He has led on border security, installing conservative justices and electing Republican majorities in the Senate.
But now, he faces his most important task: finally ridding us of Ken Paxton.
The state attorney general — spinner of fantastic conspiracy theories, accused but never convicted, impeached but never ashamed — announced Tuesday that he’s taking on the senior senator in next year’s Republican primary. It’s been clear for a while that he was itching for the fight, and it instantly becomes the marquee state match-up for 2026.
Paxton is the great survivor in recent Texas GOP politics. Cornyn is unbeaten across more statewide elections than anyone can remember. Pity the donors and politicians who have to choose sides or try to duck the question.
Like any politician with a long record, Cornyn has sometimes irked his constituents, even those who regularly vote for him. That’s because he has actually tried to solve problems and — gasp! — find compromise in Washington.
Detractors will inflate thin incidents such as Cornyn’s dalliance with incentives for states to enact red-flag laws on guns. Internal party politics is the classic example of the narcissism of small differences, and on issues, the gap between the two couldn’t be much smaller.
Cornyn’s main sin, though, seems to be that he’s not angry enough all the time. He’s not prone to spinning wild conspiracy theories. He’s not willing to pull useless political stunts.
Those are the very things that the most dedicated MAGA-inflected Texas primary voter seems to want. To them, Paxton says: I’m your huckleberry.
If this race is about competence, Cornyn should win a blowout. But if it comes down to luck, look out, because Paxton might be the luckiest son of a gun in Texas politics since LBJ.
Who else manages to abuse his office so badly that he gets impeached but then wiggles out of it, in part with the help of a powerful lieutenant governor but mostly because of an inept prosecution?
Who else avoids federal prosecution despite clear evidence that he twisted the office the public entrusted to him in service of a developer buddy who just happened to be working on the attorney general’s house?
Who else has the gall to spend more than 20 years in public office, pledge absolute fealty to a sitting president in his second term, and then announce he’s running as the anti-establishment candidate?
The guy who picked up an expensive pen he saw laying around in an airport, that’s who. The guy who abused his business partners’ trust and cost them thousands of dollars, that’s who. The guy who tried to drag Texas into the fantastical world of 2020 election denial, that’s who.
Paxton will point to his victories in court over the Biden administration and other bogeymen. At the very time that Donald Trump’s administration argues, correctly, against allowing federal judges to stop presidential actions with nationwide injunctions, Paxton will try to get elected on the strength of securing those same injunctions.
But this won’t be about principles or consistency. Nor will it be about who can be an effective senator.
Instead, get ready for nearly a year of arguing over who’s closer to Trump. Get ready for the definition of “conservative” to be beaten beyond recognition. Get ready for enough TV ads and snarky web videos to make your eyes and ears bleed.
And unless Cornyn can coast on the power of incumbency, get ready for Senator Ken Paxton. Congress has probably seen worse lawmakers. But it hasn’t seen very many worse men.
This story was originally published April 8, 2025 at 8:45 PM.
