Incumbent Sen. John Cornyn and Attorney General Ken Paxton will head to a runoff for Texas’ Republican U.S. Senate nomination after no candidate reached the 50% threshold in Tuesday’s primary election.
Cornyn held 41.9% of the vote, while Paxton was close behind at 40.7%, with over 95% of the votes counted. The runoff election is set for May 26, with the winner advancing to face Democratic nominee James Talarico in November’s general election.
In a post to Truth Social on Wednesday, President Donald Trump wrote he plans to make an endorsement “soon” and will be asking the candidate he doesn’t endorse “to immediately DROP OUT OF THE RACE!”
According to AdImpact, a total of $95.1 million was spent for the GOP primaries, which ranks this as the second-most expensive Senate Primary race ever in terms of independent funding. John Cornyn raised a total of $69.0 million through many different organizations and PACS. Wesley Hunt has raised a total of $12.0M in ad support, while Ken Paxton has raised $3.7 million. Of all the candidates, Hunt has received the most ads attacking him, with $6.4 million and 20% of all Republican ads being directed negatively towards him.
Cornyn has served as U.S. Senator for Texas since 2002. According to Cornyn’s website, his main policies include advocating for higher penalties on undocumented immigrants, limiting asylum and increasing staffing for all border and immigration staff.
Attorney General Ken Paxton has spent years attracting MAGA voters, famously suing the Biden administration over 100 times pertaining to his open-border policies and Second Amendment stance.
However, Paxton did have some controversy on his track record. On May 27, 2023, in a 121-23 vote, Paxton was impeached by the Texas House of Representatives, making him only the third sitting official impeached in Texas history on counts of bribery, corruption, an affair cover-up, and abuse of power. The Senate eventually acquitted Paxton on all 16 articles of impeachment.
The third candidate in the mix was U.S Rep. Wesley Hunt, who obtained 13.5% of the vote.
Hunt’s inclusion in the primary alone can be seen as one of the reasons the race ended in a runoff. In a poll conducted by the University of Texas for the month of February, Hunt trailed at 26%, behind Cornyn (34%) and Paxton (36%).
