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Neither Senator John Cornyn nor Attorney General Ken Paxton secured a majority on Tuesday, setting up a May runoff after a bitter and costly Republican primary.
Published March 3, 2026Updated March 4, 2026, 1:11 a.m. ET
The rancorous Republican primary between Senator John Cornyn and his insurgent challenger, the Texas attorney general Ken Paxton, is heading for a runoff after neither candidate secured a majority of votes on Tuesday.
The result prolongs a bitter and costly intraparty contest between Mr. Cornyn, a stalwart conservative and senior member of the Senate, and Mr. Paxton, a darling of the party’s MAGA voters.
A runoff had been widely expected after a third prominent candidate, Representative Wesley Hunt of Houston, entered the primary in the fall, seeking to unseat Mr. Cornyn. A final vote in the contest will be held on May 26.
In the days before the vote, Mr. Cornyn and Mr. Paxton appeared to be preparing for a long fight in what seemed to be a deeply personal battle between two of Texas’ top elected officials. On Tuesday night, each vowed to prevail in the end.
“I will be the Republican nominee,” Mr. Paxton said, speaking to raucous supporters in a ballroom of a Dallas hotel.
He portrayed himself as the underdog facing an onslaught of tens of millions of dollars in campaign spending by Mr. Cornyn and his allies, which Mr. Paxton could not match. “Here’s what we proved tonight: while the money may be on his side, the people are on our side,” Mr. Paxton said.
