WASHINGTON — A poll commissioned by a group supporting U.S. Sen. John Cornyn’s reelection is showing an uphill battle for the incumbent, as he faces a challenge from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for the Republican nomination. The poll by the Senate Leadership Fund, which aims to protect the Senate’s Republican majority, shows Cornyn down by double digits.
It is perhaps why the longtime Republican senator is doing all he can to show how much he has got President Donald Trump’s back.
Ever since the official launch of his reelection bid, Cornyn has been aligning himself with Trump. Cornyn has repeated how his voting record reflects Trump’s priorities and how he helped to pass Trump’s tax cuts in the president’s first term.
The Cornyn campaign recently shared an image of Trump and Cornyn on a spray bottle. The social media post said, “TRUMP-CORNYN: 99% effective against open borders, woke mobs, and radical liberalism. Spray daily.”
Ingratiating himself with Trump may be necessary, as Cornyn faces what is expected to be a bitter primary battle with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
“Donald Trump owns the Republican Party in Texas, lock, stock and barrel. If we were to look at those same kind of approval numbers, Donald Trump, his numbers are in the high 80s or low 90s, typically much higher than both Cornyn and Paxton, much higher than most every other Republican, and so the indirect association with Trump is very important for both men,” said James Henson, the director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin.
Henson has surveyed the voters who consider themselves strong Republicans, and Paxton’s favorability ratings are higher among them compared to Cornyn’s.
Punchbowl News reported Monday that a poll commissioned by the Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC that supports Cornyn, shows Paxton ahead of the incumbent senator by 16 points. Adding U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt, R-Houston, to the race, Paxton leads Cornyn by 10 points, with Hunt behind both of them.
“John Cornyn, somewhat more well known after having been in the Senate for so long, but not as not seen as favorably by the kind of grassroots most conservative corners of the Republican Party, and that’s why he seems at this moment to be somewhat vulnerable to this challenge from Ken Paxton,” Henson said.
In a statement to Spectrum News, the Cornyn campaign said, “Senator Cornyn has a 99% voting record with Trump as President and continues to be his close legislative ally. In ten months, when Texas GOP primary voters completely understand the record of both candidates, we are confident we will win.”
Notably, the poll showed that if the last Democratic candidate for Senate, former U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, D-Dallas, were to join the race, he would do slightly better than Paxton.
While some pollsters caution it is still too early and no Democrat has officially announced for Senate, the polling shows that Paxton might not be able to do as well as Cornyn in a general election. That is something the Texas Democratic Party has been eager to seize on.
“I mean, look, Cornyn’s cooked, you know, even if he were to get out of this primary, which I’m not sure he’s going to he is going to have one of the most bloody, bruising primaries in the country, and it poises Democrats to be in a unique spot to be able to be successful there,” Kendall Scudder, chair of the Texas Democratic Party, told Spectrum News.
It appears President Trump is not ready to endorse in the race but suggested he may do so later. Last month, Trump said he wishes Cornyn and Paxton were not running against each other.
