CNN
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Republicans are rising anxious about an rising Texas main engulfing considered one of their longest-serving senators, fearful {that a} massively costly intraparty feud may have main ramifications throughout the map in subsequent 12 months’s midterms.
And so they need President Donald Trump to cease it.
Behind the scenes, Senate GOP leaders have personally requested Trump to again Sen. John Cornyn, who has occupied his seat for greater than twenty years and narrowly misplaced his bid to develop into Senate majority chief final fall.
However the Texas lawyer normal, Ken Paxton, is sending loud indicators that he plans to enter the race, endearing himself to MAGA loyalists who need Trump to again the controversial firebrand.
Including to Cornyn’s challenges: Texas Rep. Wesley Hunt is now additionally making strikes to enter the GOP main and has privately contended to White Home political advisers that he’s the one one who can win each a main and a normal election, in accordance with an individual concerned within the dialogue.
All that has added as much as one overriding concern: {that a} Texas Senate GOP main may find yourself costing their social gathering at the very least $100 million, siphoning cash from different essential battlegrounds, in accordance with a number of Senate GOP sources. Plus, they fear {that a} wounded GOP nominee may find yourself giving Democrats an opportunity in what would in any other case be a long-shot pickup alternative as former Rep. Colin Allred weighs one other Senate run.
Prime Hill Republicans hope Trump might help clear the sector with a Cornyn endorsement. Senate Majority Chief John Thune confirmed to CNN that he’s spoken to Trump about it in latest weeks.
“I’m hoping that in the long run, he can,” Thune stated when requested about Trump supporting Cornyn. “Clearly we’re supporting Sen. Cornyn. He’s performed a fantastic job for Texas and for the nation. And we’d like him again.”
The battle places Trump on the middle of the simmering feud between the social gathering’s rebel and institution wings that has dominated GOP main politics because the 2010 midterms, forcing him to select sides and danger angering a few of his most loyal supporters.
Cornyn, 73, a longtime fixture in Texas politics with deep ties to the enterprise and donor neighborhood, has taken steps to attempt to align himself carefully with the president, together with a launch video that includes footage of Trump praising him from 2019 and even posting a photo on X of him studying “The Artwork of the Deal.”
In an interview final week, the Texas senator informed CNN he’s “ready” for a main struggle, however he wouldn’t touch upon Paxton or Hunt till they formally enter the race. (He stated he would communicate “endlessly” about Paxton if he jumps into the race.)
Requested about Trump, Cornyn stated he speaks to the president repeatedly and believes he’ll “make an endorsement when he’s prepared.”
“I’ve an excellent relationship; sit up for supporting him and his agenda as I at all times have,” Cornyn stated of Trump. Requested whether or not the president’s backing may make a distinction within the race, Cornyn stated: “I feel his endorsement could be necessary, yeah.”
However each Paxton and Hunt have tried to point out daylight between Cornyn and Trump.
In maybe the clearest signal of his intentions to run towards Cornyn, Hunt argued the senior senator was able to “transfer on” from Trump after the 2020 elections.
“Now, he’s scrambling to rewrite historical past — hoping voters will overlook he ever turned his again on the very motion that constructed our momentum and delivered the bulk for Republicans, particularly the Senate,” Hunt, a hard-right Republican and fight veteran, informed CNN.
“The US Senate is just not a retirement neighborhood. It’s a battleground for the soul of this nation,” stated Hunt, 43, who gained his Houston-area Home seat in 2022. “And in instances like these, President Trump doesn’t want fence sitters — he wants warriors.”
And Hunt is now benefiting from a seven-figure advert purchase from an outdoor group trying to bolster his title ID throughout the state, one thing that shall be essential given how occasionally Home candidates win statewide in Texas.
Behind the scenes, a number of conservatives are making the case to Trump’s political group to ditch the long-serving senator — some geared up with non-public polling displaying Cornyn dropping in a main, in accordance with three folks conversant in the outreach. They argue Cornyn has misplaced the GOP base lately, after voting with most Republicans and all Democrats to certify Joe Biden’s election win and partnering with Democrats to move a major gun safety bill, a transfer that got here within the wake of the Uvalde college bloodbath in 2022.
“There are high-level people who find themselves behind Paxton in a means they’re usually not in main challenges,” stated one Senate GOP operative.
However this particular person additionally outlined a situation that’s worrying nationwide leaders, describing Paxton as a “very tough normal election candidate in what appears to be like like could possibly be a nasty cycle.”
After beforehand criticizing Trump over the January 6, 2021 assault on the Capitol, Cornyn labored by the final election cycle to rebuild his ties with the president, showing with him at a marketing campaign occasion in Nevada — and ready on the tarmac final October when the president arrived in Austin for a podcast interview with Joe Rogan. Cornyn typically factors to his work because the Republican whip throughout Trump’s first time period to assist usher by the 2017 tax legislation and plenty of of his nominees, together with to the Supreme Court docket, and boasts of voting with Trump greater than 90% of the time in his first time period.
Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, who leads the Nationwide Republican Senatorial Committee, and his group have made this case to White Home officers, in accordance with an individual conversant in the dialogue. And Scott has made clear to Hunt that they’re totally behind Cornyn as their nominee when the pair met in latest weeks, in accordance with two folks briefed on that assembly.
The aim: curtail GOP primaries and focus the social gathering’s restricted assets on essential pickup alternatives akin to Georgia, Michigan and New Hampshire — whereas defending Republican seats in locations like Maine and North Carolina.
“We labored exhausting to attempt to clear primaries to attempt to reduce the amount of cash spent in Republican primaries, and that technique proved efficient and allowed us to select up america Senate within the final cycle,” Sen. Steve Daines of Montana, who led the NRSC within the 2024 cycle, informed CNN final week. “So any time we will attempt to reduce the affect of a main like in Texas, that’s going to assist us win the final election.”
Cornyn, for his half, just lately informed CNN he can defeat any doable challengers: “There’s a purpose why I’ve gained 19 contested elections: All the time be ready.”
Democrats, in the meantime, are salivating on the thought of working towards Paxton, who’s a lightning-rod determine in Texas. Paxton, 62, was practically faraway from workplace by fellow Texas Republicans lower than a 12 months in the past amid a long-running federal corruption probe. (These expenses had been dropped by the Biden administration in its remaining weeks in workplace, and Paxton has denied wrongdoing.)
However the cloud of allegations will undoubtedly give Paxton’s opponents ample fodder in a Senate marketing campaign, in accordance with GOP and Democratic operatives.
Allred, a former congressman who misplaced by 8 factors to GOP Sen. Ted Cruz final 12 months, is “critically contemplating” one other run and can decide this summer season, in accordance with an individual conversant in his pondering.
In a latest memo obtained by CNN, the Texas Democratic Occasion praised Allred’s race towards Cruz, during which Allred overperformed the 2024 presidential nominee, Kamala Harris, in “practically each county, demographic and metric” and did “significantly nicely” within the aggressive turf alongside the Texas border that may be essential to a 2026 race.
New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who leads the Senate Democrats’ marketing campaign arm, stated her social gathering is constructing a “blue wave” due to “anger” towards Trump.
“A big blue wave can have an effect on any state,” she informed CNN when requested final week about her social gathering’s possibilities to select up the Texas seat.
However many conservatives low cost speak that Allred may win in a state that hasn’t elected a Democrat statewide since 1994. And provided that, they argue Texas ought to elect an unyielding conservative firebrand — like Paxton, dismissing his political baggage.
Certainly, as conservatives flocked to Washington in February for the annual Conservative Political Motion Convention, a small band of MAGA supporters arrived early to listen to Trump’s longtime political ally Caroline Wren speak about the fitting’s potential 2026 main targets.
In her view, reasonable GOP Sen. Susan Collins wasn’t a worthy goal due to Maine’s blue tilt: “Let’s simply go away her alone. Don’t waste your time.”
Then she turned to Texas. “However how about John Cornyn in Texas? He’s up. Who wish to see a Sen. Ken Paxton?” she stated as the gang cheered.
It’s that burst of right-wing enthusiasm that has put Republicans on Capitol Hill in an ungainly spot when requested about Cornyn’s reelection bid.
Quite a lot of Republicans within the delegation refuse to say whether or not they may again Cornyn, with some clearly ready for Trump to tip his hand and others uncertain how the first struggle will form up.
“I’m gonna keep out of that minefield,” Rep. Keith Self, a Texas GOP member of the Home Freedom Caucus, informed CNN.
Cruz has been noticeably silent — regardless that Cornyn raised tons of of hundreds of {dollars} for Cruz’s reelection bid final 12 months. Cruz’s preliminary silence is harking back to Cornyn’s 2014 reelection, when the senior senator confronted a tea party-inspired challenger whom he vanquished within the main. Cruz stayed impartial within the main earlier than backing Cornyn within the 2014 normal election.
Twice in latest weeks, Cruz refused to reply when requested whether or not he’d again Cornyn. Requested by CNN final week whether or not he would endorse Cornyn, Cruz stated: “Name the press workplace.” After which he let the elevator doorways shut when requested whether or not he had spoken to Paxton or Hunt about their potential bids.
However a Cruz spokesperson didn’t reply to requests for remark.
