New Poll Shows John Cornyn On Track To Lose 2026 Senate Primary

Republican U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), the senior senator from Texas and one of the majority’s most powerful figures, suddenly doesn’t look all that powerful back home. A new poll, released Wednesday and produced by Victory Insights, shows the 72-year-old Cornyn drawing a competitive challenger if Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton were to run in next year’s Republican primary. Waning enthusiasm for Cornyn, who has served in the Senate since 2002, has been a recurring theme throughout his fourth six-year term and has prompted Texas Republicans to seek out an alternative voice that might better represent their deep red state. His favorability among Republicans took a hit in 2022 after he worked to hammer out the contours of a bipartisan bill aimed at gun reform; over three months of public debate that year, his disapproval rating increased to 50%, up from 39%, according to the Texas Tribune.

The latest poll of 500 Republican primary voters was in the field from January 4th to the 6th and lays bare some of Sen. Cornyn’s biggest vulnerabilities when facing a dramatically more MAGA electorate than when he first took office. Even if Paxton declined to run for the Senate, Cornyn still trails a generic Republican challenger by 4%, with another 25% of voters remaining undecided. “This is a very weak showing for an incumbent,” the authors state. If Paxton runs, he will begin his campaign leading Cornyn by 8 points with an equal number of uncommitted Republican voters. The poll also asked respondents to identify which “type” of Republican they considered themselves and offered four choices: “Donald Trump MAGA Republican” (58% said this applies to them); “Constitutional Conservative” (50.1% said this label applies); “Traditional Republican” (15.2%); and “Moderate Republican” (18.1%). “It doesn’t take a genius to spot the trend here. Voters on the more moderate or traditional end of the spectrum tend to prefer Cornyn, while more conservative or Trump-aligned voters tend to prefer Paxton. The issue for Cornyn is that Donald Trump MAGA Republicans and Constitutional Conservatives together make up 69% of the electorate, and Paxton dominates among those types,” the authors add.

📊 2026 Texas Senate GOP Primary

Ken Paxton – 42%
John Cornyn – 34%
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Undecided – 24%@VictoryPolling | LVs | January 4-6https://t.co/EpJglnOcQj pic.twitter.com/BwpbwitPwm

— InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) January 8, 2025

Following the elections, Cornyn challenged colleague John Thune (R-SD) to succeed Mitch McConnell (R-KY) as majority leader after it became clear that Republicans would control the upper chamber. However, it was Thune who emerged victorious by a healthy margin, underscoring that Cornyn also struggles to retain the confidence of his caucus members. Perhaps sensing the urgency of his situation back home, Cornyn has been on a local media blitz, touting the return of nearly $60 million in federal funds to Texas at a recent press conference and stressing the importance of helping President-elect Donald Trump “hit the ground running” by enacting his sweeping America First agenda. Paxon, 62, has cultivated plenty of goodwill as Texas’s top cop and received plaudits for his crackdown on illegal immigration across the state’s southern border. He and Gov. Greg Abbott were instrumental in the strategy to bus migrants to deep blue cities around the country, forcing Democratic mayors and governors to reckon with the crisis created by President Joe Biden’s policies. In November, he celebrated his office’s 100th lawsuit against the Biden administration.