Longtime Texas GOP Sen. John Cornyn landed the support of top Republicans in the Senate as he could be his most crude reelection of his decades-long career.
“I am honored to work with @Johncornyn, one of the most effective and respected conservative leaders in the country,” Senate majority leader John Thune wrote in a social media post Wednesday.
Thune, who broke through Cornyn last year in the Senate GOP race to take over long-time leader Mitch McConnell, stressed that his former rival “will not be tired to build a majority and need to stay in the battle with the Senate.”
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Sen. R-Texas Sen. John Cornyn speaks at a Senate Finance Committee hearing on Friday, March 14, 2025 at Capitol Hill, Washington. (AP Photo/Ben Cartis)
The Senate Majority Leader's approval officially launched the 2026 reelection campaign as he bid for his fifth six-year term representing Texas at Capitol Hill hours after Cornyn, who served as the second-ranked Republican in the Senate for six years.
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The widely anticipated support from Thune comes as 73-year-old Cornyn faces major challenges from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. President Donald Trump's allies, conservatives and Magazine Firebrand, have repeatedly cheated on him for several years by taking on Cornin.
Senate Majority Leader John Toon, a Republican from South Dakota, will speak at a press conference at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, March 11, 2025. (Aldrago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“I can't imagine any single thing he has accomplished for our state or country,” Paxton said in a September 2023 interview on the Fox News Channel. “Someone has to stand up to this guy and run,” he added, “It's all on the table for me.”
And in a digital interview with Fox News earlier this year, Paxton said he “potentially looks at the US Senate.”
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Although Paxton is very popular with the party's conservative foundation, political strategists have pointed out that beating Cornyn in the GOP primary is likely a very expensive proposal, and it is not clear whether Paxton will be able to raise the funds needed for victory.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton will speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Dallas, Texas on August 5, 2022. (Brian Snyder/Reuters)
Paxton accused Cornyn of not representing the conservative values of the Texans and accused him of not being a Trump ally.
He is also regularly labelled Cornyn as “RINO”, “Republican names only”, and has been used regularly to criticize more mainstream or founding members of the GOP.
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Cornyn said in the early stages of the Republican presidential nomination race in 2024, the GOP likes to take a new direction. However, the senator approved Trump in late January last year. The then president won both the Iowa Caucus and the New Hampshire Primary, the first two contests on the Republican White House calendar.
Since Trump returned to the White House two months ago, Cornyn has supported the president's cabinet candidate and agenda.
And in the video launching the Senator's campaign, the announcer emphasizes that “Texas Senator John Cornyn had his back” during Trump's first term.
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“Now I'm running for reelection and I'm looking for your support, so President Trump and I can pick up where we left off,” Cornyn tells the camera on video.
Cornyn is a former senator, former Texas Supreme Court judge and former state attorney general, and first won the US Senate in 2002.
Peter Pinedo of Fox News contributed to this report
