Texas AG Ken Paxton officially joins U.S. Senate race challenging John Cornyn

Paxton’s candidacy poses the most serious threat to Cornyn’s political career in decades. It would mark a watershed moment in the Texas GOP’s factional struggle if Paxton — not long removed from an array of career-threatening legal battles and impeachment by his own party — managed to topple Cornyn, a mainstay of Texas politics who had an early hand in the state’s Republican takeover and reached the upper rungs of Senate GOP leadership.

Wasting no time framing himself as the outsider in the race, Paxton wrote on social media he was running to “take a sledgehammer to the D.C. establishment,” while calling for voters to “send John Cornyn packing.”

Cornyn has easily fended off competition from the right even as his party has taken a sharp turn in that direction. But now, the four-term senator is facing more serious heat over his support for military aid to Ukraine, his public skepticism about Trump’s electability ahead of the 2024 election, and his role leading Senate negotiations on a bill restricting firearm access after the 2022 shooting at Uvalde’s Robb Elementary School.

Still, Cornyn has remained defiant in the face of Paxton’s long-expected challenge and after losing his bid to become the next Senate majority leader — the first defeat of his political career.

Since then, he has taken on new committee assignments, putting himself on several key panels that will oversee major priorities of President Donald Trump. He ended last year with $4.1 million cash on hand, then launched his reelection bid last month with a video touting his time as Senate GOP whip “delivering the votes” for Trump’s “biggest wins” in the first years of his presidency. Those included Trump’s 2017 tax cuts and the confirmation of Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.

During Trump’s first term, Cornyn voted more than 92% of the time with the president’s agenda and voted for every one of Trump’s executive and judicial appointees. He has followed a similar pattern since Trump won back the White House, again backing all the president’s nominees, including controversial picks who attracted skepticism from GOP lawmakers.

A spokesperson for Cornyn’s campaign responded to Paxton’s announcement by labeling him a “fraud.”

“This will be a spirited campaign and we assure Texans they will have a real choice when this race is over,” the spokesperson said, adding that Texas needs “a battle-tested conservative” who “won’t be outsmarted by Chuck Schumer,” the Democratic minority leader.

As the Cornyn-Paxton clash gets underway, perhaps the biggest looming question is whether Trump will throw his support — and considerable clout in primaries — behind either candidate. The president’s endorsement has helped boost numerous GOP candidates in crowded Texas primaries since he became entrenched as the party’s most popular figure nearly a decade ago.