Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is intensifying his challenge to unseat longtime Republican Senator John Cornyn in what's shaping up to be one of the year's most heated GOP primary battles. Despite facing millions in attack ads and personal controversies, Paxton enters the race as the apparent frontrunner ahead of early voting starting Tuesday.
DALLAS (AP) — Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton will find himself in an unusual position Monday evening: leading his inaugural campaign rally since declaring his U.S. Senate candidacy nearly a year ago.
The event marks an escalation in Paxton’s effort to oust veteran Republican Senator John Cornyn, who has served four terms, as the attorney general seeks to bring a strong Trump supporter to the Senate in what has become one of 2024’s most heated GOP primary contests.
Previously, Paxton ran a more subdued campaign operation, spending limited funds while drawing attention mainly through his conservative legal initiatives as Texas’s top prosecutor. However, with early voting set to begin Tuesday for the March 3 primary, Paxton has planned multiple campaign stops throughout Texas this week. He has also launched television advertisements connecting himself to President Donald Trump while challenging both Cornyn and Representative Wesley Hunt.
Even though he faces sustained attacks from millions of dollars in negative advertising funded by Cornyn and his supporters, plus opposition from Senate GOP leadership who argue Cornyn would be more electable in November, Paxton appears to be entering the Republican primary as the leading candidate.
“I wish they’d stop sending money from Washington, D.C.,” Paxton stated during an appearance on “Fox News Sunday.” “They are sending the money from D.C., and they’re helping John Cornyn. And it’s going to be … a lot of money spent, and he’s going to end up losing.”
Paxton’s continued political viability seems to challenge traditional expectations, similar to Trump’s own trajectory. The attorney general survived impeachment proceedings on fraud allegations in 2023, and currently faces accusations of extramarital conduct from his spouse, state Senator Angela Paxton.
The three-term attorney general is wagering that his willingness to oppose his own party’s establishment and his aggressive pursuit of conservative legal battles will help him weather ethical and personal allegations that Republican voters in the traditionally red state have largely overlooked so far.
Monday begins a four-day rally tour organized by Lone Star Liberty PAC, a super PAC backing Paxton, designed to alert voters that Texas early voting commences Tuesday.
His earlier campaign appearances were more modest affairs, including local Republican party meetings alongside other candidates. During the fall, he visited five Texas universities to address Turning Point USA chapters following the assassination of the conservative Christian organization’s national leader, Charlie Kirk.
However, those activities have essentially comprised Paxton’s entire public campaign presence until this week, apart from appearances on several podcasts with sympathetic hosts.
Through Friday, television advertising supporting Paxton in Texas totaled just one commercial costing $674,000 to broadcast, based on data from AdImpact, an advertising tracking firm.
That advertisement targeted Hunt, a second-term House representative from the Houston region, rather than Cornyn. Hunt, like Paxton, is attempting to attract primary voters seeking an alternative to Cornyn. By attacking Hunt, Paxton’s supporters hope to capture some of his support to reach 50% of the primary vote — the amount required to secure the GOP nomination without a runoff. Should no candidate achieve 50%, the top two vote-getters would compete in a May 26 runoff election.
Friday saw Paxton’s campaign launch a new advertisement showcasing video footage of Trump commending Paxton alongside photographs of the two together. As of Monday, Trump had not endorsed any of the three Republican candidates.
Paxton has used his Austin-based office to maintain his position at the forefront of conservative causes.
During the previous year, he filed lawsuits against Texas doctors, claiming they violated the state’s prohibition on gender-affirming medical treatment for children, supporting a central issue for social conservatives in their fight against what they term gender ideology.
In October, shortly after Trump repeatedly warned pregnant women, “Don’t take Tylenol,” Paxton sued manufacturers of the pain medication, claiming they misleadingly marketed it to expectant mothers while making unsubstantiated assertions that early exposure to its main component heightened autism risks.
Most significantly, Paxton spearheaded numerous court challenges against the former Joe Biden administration regarding immigration and border enforcement, frequently prevailing and strengthening his reputation as a conservative advocate. Since winning his first attorney general race in 2014, Paxton also regularly sued Barack Obama’s administration during the final two years of the Democratic president’s tenure.
“I think Ken Paxton is a fighter,” stated U.S. Representative Troy Nehls of Texas. Nehls noted that Paxton filed more lawsuits against then-President Joe Biden than any other state attorney general.
This continuous legal activity has maintained Paxton’s media presence throughout Texas, even as Cornyn and his supporters have invested heavily in attempts to damage his standing among Republican primary voters.
By Friday, Cornyn’s campaign and supporting super PACs had invested over $54 million in television advertising since the previous year, according to AdImpact data. Much of this spending highlighted Paxton’s impeachment trial and his wife’s divorce filing citing “biblical grounds,” which alleged extramarital relationships. These organizations have spent additional millions on online advertisements, text campaigns, and direct mail pieces also criticizing Paxton.
One commercial, funded by Texans for a Conservative Majority, begins with a narrator declaring, “Ken Paxton isn’t just corrupt. He’s weird.”
Republican political consultants not connected to any campaign say the extensive spending and months of criticism have not substantially damaged Paxton, who appears confident. No Texas senator in the state’s notable political history has served beyond four terms. Paxton believes his name recognition exceeds that of nearly every other statewide Republican official in Texas, including Cornyn.
During a December podcast appearance with Tony Buzbee, an attorney who represented the attorney general during his impeachment proceedings, Paxton stated that the “only other people with name ID” in the state are Governor Greg Abbott and Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, who are running for reelection, along with Senator Ted Cruz.
Washington-based Republican Senate leadership has expressed concerns about Paxton for months. They argue that a Paxton nomination would require hundreds of millions of additional dollars to defend in the general election due to anticipated attacks, compared to what defending Cornyn would cost. They contend this represents money the party should not need to spend in Texas, a state Trump won by more than 13 percentage points.
Democrats need to gain four total seats to capture the Senate majority in November. The minority party has expressed increased optimism about competing for Republican-held seats in Alaska, Maine, North Carolina, and Ohio.
In Texas, U.S. Representative Jasmine Crockett and state Representative James Talarico are pursuing the Democratic nomination. Paxton would fare worse than Cornyn in the November contest against either Democratic candidate, according to strategists from the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the campaign organization led by Senate Majority Leader John Thune, in an early February memo obtained by The Associated Press.
“Cornyn wins the general election,” the memo concludes. “Paxton puts the seat at risk.”
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