TYLER, Texas — The GOP establishment spent more than $60 million to kneecap Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s Senate campaign.
It didn’t work.
Over the last six months, D.C. Republicans unleashed a tidal wave of TV ads boosting Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas). Those ads reminded Lone Star State voters about Paxton’s messy divorce, controversial impeachment proceedings and a slew of corruption scandals involving the longtime pol.
But Paxton is entering the final weeks ahead of the March 3 Senate GOP primary just as he began it — the front-runner. And Paxton is convinced that he’s going to end Cornyn’s Senate career soon.
“My numbers look as good as they ever have. This is going to be a good race for me,” Paxton told us this week after an early voting kickoff event. “Now, John Cornyn’s at risk of finishing third. He may finish third. That’s where he’s at. He is in serious trouble of not even making a runoff.”
Here’s the crazy part: Paxton didn’t air TV ads of his own until mid-February. He held just a few public campaign events and barely responded to the pro-Cornyn onslaught.
“I don’t want to give their attacks dignity,” Paxton said.
Cornyn’s fundraising dwarfs Paxton’s. Yet Paxton enters any runoff in the pole position because those faceoffs draw the kind of smaller, more conservative electorate in which he thrives.
Warning bell. Senate Republicans have been sounding the alarm for months that Paxton can’t win a general election. Senate GOP leaders say the reasons Paxton is so beloved by the far-right — his hardline conservatism — make him uniquely vulnerable against a Democratic opponent in the fall.
The opposite is true of Cornyn, whose bipartisan deals on issues like gun control, support for Ukraine and previous skepticism of President Donald Trump have left him struggling in a Republican primary but then much better positioned for a general.
Cornyn upped his attacks on Paxton as early voting began on Tuesday. During an event in Austin, Cornyn predicted that having Paxton as the GOP nominee would endanger federal and statewide offices across Texas.
“We will have an Election Day massacre,” Cornyn said. “Republicans up and down the ticket will pay the price of having an albatross like our corrupt attorney general hung around their neck.”
Yet for all the money already spent — and all the money yet to come — it’s not clear that Paxton can be stopped.
The base. Paxton told us he entered the race last spring because Cornyn’s poll numbers were so abysmal.
After a summer of ads, Cornyn’s polling started to tick up in some public and private surveys. Paxton’s dropped somewhat. But most Republicans involved in the race agree: Paxton has a high floor.
Paxton has achieved celebrity status among the right by using his perch as the top lawyer in the nation’s largest red state to wage unceasing culture wars. He sued to overturn the 2020 election, targeted Pfizer over the Covid-19 vaccine and pursued cases against doctors who provide gender transition services.
Paxton has also faced a laundry list of scandals, including a Texas Senate impeachment trial (he was acquitted) and more recently, his wife divorcing him on “biblical grounds,” including accusations of adultery.
But in some ways, Paxton has developed Trumpian-like political armor, where the attacks against him seem to further entrench his hardcore loyalists.
“Ken Paxton has his base and his base isn’t leaving him,” said Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas), a Paxton endorser. “If a nasty divorce would disqualify you from being a member of Congress, we could not establish a quorum in Washington, D.C.”
Two other big factors swung in Paxton’s favor: Trump ignored pressure to endorse against him and a third candidate entered the fray.
The Hunt factor. The race between Paxton and Cornyn had begun to tighten when Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-Texas) jumped into the primary in October.
Both Cornyn and Paxton dismiss Hunt as a nonentity. But the anti-Hunt TV ads suggest otherwise.
Paxton’s super PAC appeared to knock Hunt because they’d rather face Cornyn in a runoff. An attack from a pro-Cornyn group likely means they want to ensure Hunt doesn’t box out the incumbent senator.
“I guess I’m doing better in the polls than you’re letting on. Otherwise you wouldn’t be spending the money,” Hunt declared at a Monday event in Dallas.
However, Hunt’s entrance all but ensures the race will go to a runoff the Tuesday after Memorial Day.
Looking ahead, Cornyn acknowledged he would need to change the typical runoff electorate to win. His plan: leverage endorsements from groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Texas Farm Bureau that have collective memberships “approaching 2.6 million.”
“I’m not under the illusion all of them will show up and vote in the primary,” Cornyn said. “But we’re doing things that have never been done before to try to encourage people to turn out.”
Making nice. Paxton appears to be looking beyond the runoff.
At a restaurant in East Texas, Paxton addressed a crowd of supporters and took a few jabs at Cornyn, saying that he had accomplished little in Congress.
But he didn’t overly slam moderates as RINOs or throw too much red-meat to the base.
Consider this: Paxton declined to attack Senate Majority Leader John Thune or the NRSC, which has mocked him publicly as it tries to boost Cornyn.
“I’m not here to criticize any particular person other than the guy that’s running: John Cornyn,” Paxton said. “They make their decisions in Washington differently than we make them here. That’s fine. But once I’ve won, then I intend and hope that they’ll be willing and able to work with me.”
In an interview, Paxton acknowledged he would need to appeal to Democrats and independents in a general election: “I’ve won three statewide races, all of a sudden now I can’t win one?”
But there’s one caveat — those victories were before Paxton’s public divorce.
