Houston
—
Sen. John Cornyn stood earlier than TV cameras in Houston lately and issued a warning to Ken Paxton, the person threatening to take the seat he’s held for practically two dozen years: Things have been about to get an entire lot uglier.
“After we get through with the attorney general” in a possible runoff, Cornyn stated, “he’s going to be unelectable.”
Cornyn and his allies had already poured tens of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in assault advertisements accusing the three-term state lawyer common of corruption and private enrichment. Cornyn’s closing message, within the ultimate days of the primary, blasts Paxton for infidelity, accusing him of “sleeping around with a married mother of seven,” a declare NCS has not verified.
“We are just getting started,” Cornyn stated in an interview after the occasion final week. “By the time it’s over, Texans will know everything they need to know about the candidates, including Ken Paxton.”
But the marketing campaign has revealed one thing about Cornyn too. After greater than 20 years within the Senate, cordially climbing the rungs, backing conservative insurance policies but in addition engaged on bipartisan offers, Cornyn is placing apart that historical past. He’s presenting himself as a stalwart ally of President Donald Trump — regardless of periodically breaking with him through the years — and spending furiously to try to drag Paxton down.
Yet these assaults haven’t executed a lot to dent Paxton’s standing to date.
Polls present Paxton main a three-way race that additionally consists of GOP Rep. Wesley Hunt. The Tuesday major is all however sure to find yourself in a May runoff with the highest two vote-getters, establishing an extended battle that Republicans estimate may price $200 million on high of the roughly $100 million already spent principally by Cornyn and his allies.
Paxton is closing the first with a statewide TV ad narrated by his daughter, aiming to rebut Cornyn’s character assaults. Paxton predicted that Cornyn’s push would backfire with voters, saying in a press release, “Unlike John Cornyn, who’s become a desperate shell of a man clinging to power, my campaign is not about attacking someone else’s family.”
Speaking to NCS, Paxton echoed claims from Trump of being a sufferer of vindictive prosecutions.
“Trump went through the very same thing, and look where he’s at,” he stated at a marketing campaign cease filled with voters in “Make America Great Again” hats. “It’s going to be the same way for me. We overcame all of them. You can make up whatever you want to make up, but the allegations are the allegations. But the truth is the truth.”
When then-President Joe Biden hosted a bunch of lawmakers on the White House for an occasion in summer time 2022, he thanked them for serving to to move the first nationwide gun-safety bill in a long time.
Among them was Cornyn, who pushed arduous for the invoice within the weeks after the elementary school shooting that killed 19 kids and two academics in Uvalde, Texas. It was one in all many bipartisan offers Cornyn has pursued in his 4 phrases whereas additionally voting for Republican priorities constantly.
“I hope it doesn’t get you in trouble, mentioning your name,” Biden quipped to Cornyn on the time.
It did. Years later, Cornyn’s help for the Biden-brokered gun compromise stays one of many high points his opponents hammer.
He was booed at the Texas Republican convention because the deal was being completed and labeled a “RINO” — a Republican in identify solely — by Trump on the time.
“I’ve never been thanked by Joe Biden,” Paxton lately informed a bunch of supporters in Magnolia — a metropolis in probably the most conservative elements of Texas — after accusing Cornyn of facilitating the “most restrictive gun bill in probably decades.”
Hunt, talking the identical week about 200 miles away in Tyler, Texas, accused Cornyn of forgetting “what Texans actually want” after 20 years in Washington — as a result of that’s the one motive somebody would “pass gun-control legislation in Texas,” to chuckles within the crowd.
Pressed by NCS on whether or not the gun-safety legislation is a legal responsibility, provided that he hardly ever mentions it on the path, Cornyn prompt his rivals have been being disingenuous and defended his function in passing the laws.
“No law-abiding gun owner or citizen has been denied access to firearms,” he stated. “I think we’ve saved lives.”
He denied that he had any regrets about backing the laws, which tightened background checks and consists of funds for college security and psychological well being initiatives, asserting his opponents had misled fellow Republicans about its deserves.
“Unfortunately, it’s too easy to tell lies about what we did and what we didn’t do. … There’s a bipartisan consensus, I hope there is, that guns should not be in the hands of people who are mentally ill or who are criminals,” Cornyn stated, including that he’s a gun proprietor and hunter himself. “I will zealously protect the Second Amendment rights.”
The battle for the president’s endorsement has been the central characteristic of the three-man race. But regardless of months of pleading — and even a trip by Paxton to Scotland for a quick brush with Trump on the golf course — the president has deliberately stayed out, citing his friendship with all three.
Cornyn, together with Senate Majority Leader John Thune and his chief deputy, Sen. John Barrasso, have made many appeals to Trump in regards to the potential ramifications of nominating Paxton. They’ve informed the president they’d have to spend huge quantities of cash to assist the lawyer common in opposition to the eventual Democratic nominee, both James Talarico or Jasmine Crockett. Cornyn says Paxton’s candidacy would damage down-ballot Texas Republicans, successfully making it simpler for Democrats to take the House and pursue an impeachment of Trump.
“So I think we’ve made the business case to him,” Cornyn informed NCS of Trump. “It’s not based on emotion. It’s not about me, but I think Republicans and the president and his agenda will be much better off if I’m the nominee. If Ken Paxton is the nominee, it will be a disaster.”
As Trump entered the House chamber for his State of the Union speech final week, dozens of Republicans thronged the aisles for a fast embrace or selfie. Rep. Troy Nehls of Texas used his treasured seconds with the president for a special motive — to promote Paxton, his longtime buddy, one week earlier than the state’s huge major.
“Ken’s here, and he’s going to win,” Nehls informed the president, in accordance to an individual accustomed to the alternate.
Paxton flew to Washington for Trump’s handle, partially to assist lawmakers get formally acquainted with the person many within the Capitol are attempting to defeat. The identical week, Paxton used interviews to focus on working with GOP leaders in Washington, a far cry from his fixed marketing campaign assaults on the “DC establishment.”
Cornyn’s objective: persuade GOP voters and donors that backing him in a runoff will spare huge sums the celebration would have to put behind Paxton to save the seat and preserve the Senate Republican majority.
Cornyn, who has been married for practically 50 years, is banking {that a} potential runoff would activate character. He plans to go all-in on the extremely public breakup of Paxton’s marriage with state Sen. Angela Paxton after she filed for divorce citing “biblical grounds,” accusing him of infidelity. (A court docket has dominated that future filings within the divorce will be made public, which Cornyn allies have warned will make it honest recreation for the runoff.)
“If his own family can’t trust him, you can’t trust him either,” Cornyn stated in Houston final week. “I can’t trust him.”
Even if the race heads to a runoff, Tuesday’s ultimate tallies will probably be vital for Cornyn’s future. If he is available in a distant second place, there will probably be huge strain on high Republicans in Washington to think about pulling assets to deploy them to different battleground states.
“Yet to be determined,” Thune informed NCS on Thursday when requested how a lot cash nationwide Republicans would spend in a runoff to push Cornyn by. “It’s kind of one of those scenarios we were hoping to avoid.”
Both Hunt and Paxton blame GOP leaders for burning money to assist a struggling incumbent.
In an interview at a marketing campaign cease in East Texas, Hunt stated the cash spent to enhance Cornyn quantities to “insanity.”
“You have literally spent a Powerball ticket on John Cornyn already and you’re going to spend more,” Hunt stated of GOP leaders. “You have a 24-year incumbent. It is obvious that the base has left him.”
Hunt added: “If you’re struggling this much to get out of the primary, how are you going to survive a runoff? That’s even further right than the primary.”