Sen. John Cornyn is sounding the alarm with less than two weeks before the March 3 Texas Republican primary, warning that a Ken Paxton nomination for his Senate seat could fracture the GOP ticket and open the door for Democrats to win statewide in Texas for the first time since 1994.
Early voting is already underway in the three-way contest between Cornyn, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, and Rep. Wesley Hunt. Cornyn has been crisscrossing the state to shore up support, and his message is blunt:
Ken Paxton will be the kiss of death for Republicans on the ticket in November of 2026.
That's not a throwaway line. Cornyn laid out a specific theory of the case, arguing that even if Paxton managed to hold the seat, the margin would be razor-thin, and the damage would cascade downward through every other Republican race on the ballot.
I think the attorney general, if he's the nominee, could very well lose the seat. But if he doesn't lose the seat, he's not going to win except by the hair of his chin. And, unfortunately, that will not help the down-ballot races.
Cornyn's argument isn't purely about personal political survival. He pointed to five new congressional seats in Texas, created after Republicans redistricted last year, and framed the primary as a question about whether the GOP can protect its House majority heading into the midterms.
He invoked President Trump directly, noting that Trump himself has warned about the consequences of losing the House, Fox News reported. Cornyn paraphrased the president: "if Democrats win the majority in the House of Representatives, they will impeach him for the third time." With congressional Republicans holding a trifecta in Washington and advancing Trump's marquee tax bill, the calculus here extends well beyond Austin.
Democrats sense the opening. Rep. Jasmine Crockett and Texas state Rep. James Talarico are both eyeing the seat. Three decades without a single statewide win is a long drought, and a bruising GOP primary is exactly the kind of thing that could break it.
Nick Maddux, an advisor for Paxton, did not take the criticism quietly. He told Fox News Digital that Paxton "won his election by double digits in 2022, and the same thing is going to happen in 2026, because Republican voters are fired up to go to the polls and support him."
Then he turned the electability argument on its head, calling Cornyn "the worst possible choice" for turning out "low-propensity, Trump-supporting America First voters." Maddux pointed to polling and spending figures to make his case:
There's a reason that he's stuck in the mid-20s even after $70-plus million's been lit on fire to help him instead of going to races in NC, MI, ME and GA. Texas voters don't like him, don't trust him, and won't show up to vote for him in November.
That's a striking claim. If accurate, it means an enormous war chest has produced middling returns, which would undercut the entire premise that Cornyn is the "electable" choice.
President Trump, for his part, has not endorsed any candidate in the race. When asked by reporters earlier this week, he said simply that he "liked all three of them."
That neutrality is itself a data point. In a contest where every candidate is trying to claim the MAGA mantle, the absence of a presidential endorsement leaves voters to sort the field on their own terms. It also means none of the three can credibly claim Trump's blessing, no matter how much they try to align themselves with his agenda.
This primary distills a tension that runs through the entire Republican coalition right now. On one side: the argument that nominees need broad enough appeal to protect down-ballot candidates and hold newly drawn districts. On the other: the conviction that the base wants fighters, not negotiators, and that the establishment's "electability" math has been wrong before.
Both sides have evidence. Cornyn can point to three decades of unbroken Republican dominance in Texas and argue that dominance shouldn't be gambled away. Paxton's camp can point to his double-digit 2022 win and argue that the base, not the consultants, picks winners.
What neither side can ignore is the calendar. March 3 is closing fast. The voters who are already casting ballots will decide not just who carries the Republican banner in November, but whether Texas remains a lock or becomes a battleground.
For a party holding unified power in Washington, that's a question worth getting right the first time.