Throughout the primary between Sen. John Cornyn and Attorney General Ken Paxton, especially in the final weeks, Paxton found himself on the receiving end of ads and missives bashing him as incompetent, corrupt and adulterous.
Those attacks didn’t come from Democratic nominee James Talarico. The calls came from inside the GOP-controlled Senate.
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Paxton’s alleged marital infidelity was “truly repulsive and disgusting,” the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s communications director said in July. “A lot of people who trust Ken Paxton get lied to,” read another release from Senate Republicans’ campaign arm, coming in the wake of a report that Paxton listed multiple homes as his primary residence. The group also charged last fall that Paxton’s “incompetence as Texas’ chief law enforcement officer has allowed crime to run rampant.”
GOP groups allied or affiliated with Senate Republicans spent millions of dollars amplifying these sorts of attacks on voters’ TV screens, a full-court press motivated by concerns about Paxton’s appeal to the broader electorate in November. It didn’t matter: Paxton smoked Cornyn by nearly 30 percentage points in Tuesday’s runoff — compelling an alliance by necessity, if not natural synergy, between the attorney general and the Washington groups that spent months undermining him.
As it became clear Paxton would win, the NRSC quietly purged the anti-Paxton posts from its social media accounts and website. The group didn’t acknowledge Paxton by name in its Tuesday night statement on the runoff results, instead focusing solely on attacking Talarico.
“A state President Trump won by nearly 14 points isn’t going to elect James Talarico — a radical leftist who thinks God is nonbinary and that Texas should be a welcome mat for illegals,” NRSC regional press secretary Samantha Cantrell said. “He is the most dangerous flank of the far left. Texas isn’t swapping brisket for open borders.”
But whether the Republican establishment can get on board with Paxton — from the donor class to party leaders in Washington to Cornyn’s voters — looms as a critical question in the race as both sides pivot to November. Paxton, long regarded as an uninspired fundraiser, is going up against a financial juggernaut in Talarico, suggesting GOP leadership may be needed to help balance the scales. And Democrats have long seen Paxton, burdened by a history of ethical and legal scandal, as their ticket for making meaningful inroads with moderate Republicans.
With Talarico already making overtures to Cornyn voters, Paxton and the pro-Cornyn forces will need to quickly start afresh, no matter how raw things may feel after months of rancor.
Paxton began the effort last night by thanking Cornyn for his service and pledging to earn the votes of everyone who voted in the primary. Gregg Keller, a spokesperson for the pro-Paxton Lone Star Liberty PAC, said the Paxton camp feels good about its ability to unite the party — starting with launching attack ads that frame Talarico as too radical for Texas.
“That tends to really focus the minds of Republicans across the entire spectrum,” Keller said.
National Republicans know there is no Senate majority without Texas, Keller said, and he expects Washington — and especially Trump — will be on board with helping Paxton keep the seat in GOP hands.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who backed Cornyn and urged Trump to intervene on Cornyn’s behalf throughout the primary, spoke with Paxton on the phone Wednesday, according to a source familiar with the call.
In a social media post Wednesday morning, Trump said he plans to “do some nice, big, beautiful rallies for Ken.” And numerous Senate Republicans began offering Paxton their support — and attacking Talarico — in the hours following Cornyn’s defeat.
Paxton will almost certainly need a hand from the coffers of GOP leaders in Washington. He has raised significantly less than either Cornyn or Talarico since launching his bid over a year ago, hauling in $16.3 million between his main campaign account and the pro-Paxton super PAC, Lone Star Liberty. Talarico, meanwhile, raised $27 million in the first quarter of 2026 alone and has collected $49.3 million between his campaign account and supportive super PAC since launching in September.
Senate Leadership Fund, the main Senate Republican super PAC associated with Thune, had been aligned with Cornyn. The group has already placed its fall ad reservations, buying up nearly $350 million of airtime across a group of eight states that does not include Texas. And though the reservations are subject to change, as of now, the Washington cavalry isn’t investing.
Still, while the Republican establishment may be bruised from the primary, the party is in lockstep on its eagerness to take Talarico down a peg by informing more voters about his worldview, including on certain social issues, that GOP leaders say is too offbeat for a red state.
Numerous polls, both public and internal, have shown Talarico leading Paxton — an unusual and disconcerting sight for Texas Republicans, who are coming off Trump’s nearly 14-point win in the state and three decades of unbroken winning in statewide contests.
However, strategists say Talarico’s advantage at the moment owes to the months of Republican infighting. Ross Hunt, a GOP operative and data guru, said the polling paints a rosy picture for the Democrat because Republicans have not yet consolidated. Most Cornyn voters, he predicted, will “hold their nose and vote for Paxton in the general election.”
“This is the nadir of popularity for both Cornyn and Paxton,” Hunt said. “Both of them are completely upside down in their image with Republican primary voters. There’s only so high your vote share can go in a hypothetical ballot if people just don’t like you. That does not carry over to the fall.”
Derek Ryan, another Texas Republican operative and data analyst, said emotions over the contentious primary have been running high for over a year. Given some time, he expects Cornyn supporters to eventually come around, even if they’re saying today that they plan to stay home or vote for Talarico.
“If you polled now, and if you polled in October, those same voters, I think you would see a significant shift,” Ryan said. “I think the closer we get to November, I think a large portion of those people will say no [and] will end up voting for Paxton.”
The other key part of Cornyn’s coalition, beyond the voters themselves, are his donors. Cornyn has strong relationships with Texas’ donor class, especially more business-oriented conservatives. Over the course of his 24-year Senate career, he’s been an ambassador between well-heeled Texas Republicans and his colleagues who come to the Lone Star State to fundraise.
The more competitive the race looks, said Ryan, the GOP operative, the more likely donors will come off the sidelines for Paxton.
“They know that the longer that that conversation is had, the closer the election could end up being in November,” Ryan said. If there’s a whiff of the seat being in jeopardy, he added, “Those big-dollar donors are probably really likely to start writing some checks and make sure that Texas stays red.”
As Paxton’s dominant victory came into focus Tuesday, some significant Republican figures pledged to come to his aid.
The Club for Growth, a well-heeled conservative group that has spent millions supporting Sen. Ted Cruz’s electoral bids, endorsed Paxton early Tuesday night and wasted no time rolling out an anti-Talarico ad through its affiliated PAC.
“Texas is a conservative state and deserves a real conservative in the Senate. Ken Paxton has consistently stood up against Democrats and the establishment in Austin to defend the rule of law and freedoms for every Texan,” Club for Growth PAC President David McIntosh said in a statement, in which he also took aim at Talarico for “promoting woke gender ideology” and “opposing the values Texans cherish.”
Cruz said on his podcast Tuesday night that he called Paxton to offer his support in fundraising and mobilizing grassroots turnout. True to his word, Paxton is coming to Washington next week for fundraising, including an event with Cruz, according to his campaign.
Warning that Republicans should take the general election seriously, Cruz said the conditions surrounding the 2026 race are reminiscent of the ones at play during his own 2018 scare, when he beat Democrat Beto O’Rourke by less than 3 percentage points.
“The challenge is much the same as 2018,” Cruz said. “I called Ken tonight, I congratulated him, he was obviously very happy. And I said, listen, I’m all in. You have my total support. I’m going to do everything I can to help you — to help you raise money, to help you turn people out, to help you with the grassroots.”
The race is “dangerous,” Cruz continued. “The left is coming after him, and their candidate is very reminiscent of Beto O’Rourke.”