The Texas Trap: Why Betting On The Worst Republican Can Cost Democrats— And The Country— Big

Cornyn vs Paxton: The GOP’s Toxic Texas Showdown That's Blowing Up

Texas offers a classic example of rooting for the worst Republican in a primary in the hopes that he will be easy to beat in a general. It’s a strategy that works sometimes— and fails other times. Remember 2016? On Tuesday Ally Mutnick, Andrew Desiderio and John Bresnahan reported that Democrat Colin Allred would beat extremist sociopath Ken Paxton in a general election, but would be beaten by GOP incumbent John Cornyn. Supporting Paxton, though, would be a very dangerous strategy. Cornyn is bad. Paxton is beyond the pale of American politics— which is why most Texas Republicans prefer him.

Paxton’s not just a run-of-the-mill right-winger, he’s a one-man wrecking crew for the rule of law; think of it like this: worse than Ted Cruz. He’s been under felony indictment for nearly a decade, dodging trial while abusing his office to shield himself from consequences. He led the failed lawsuit to overturn the 2020 election, tried to strip millions of Americans of their health care, and has weaponized his position as Texas Attorney General to attack voting rights, immigrants, LGBTQ people and public schools. His own staff accused him of bribery and abuse of office. Now, fresh off a messy divorce “on biblical grounds,” Paxton is obviously the darling of Texas Republicans, not in spite of his corruption, but because of it.

Cornyn, a corporate errand boy who has spent decades carrying water for Big Oil, may not be as flamboyantly crooked as Paxton, but he’s on the far right spectrum of Senate Republicans… just in a quieter, more calculated way. He’s spent over two decades in the Senate shoveling tax breaks to billionaires, shielding polluters, and stacking the courts with extremists. Now the Republican establishment is preparing to torch as much as $70 million to rebrand him as a “pro-Trump conservative,” as if decades of being Mitch McConnell’s loyal lieutenant weren’t proof enough of his neo-fascist bona fides. Their panic isn’t about principle; it’s about keeping the seat in the hands of someone who will obediently serve corporate donors, no matter what it costs Texas or the country. That the GOP has to choose between a shameless grifter and a polished enabler says everything about what their party has become.

Mutnick, Desiderio and Bresnahan wrote that “the Senate Leadership Fund, the top GOP super PAC focused on Senate races, urged donors last week to open their wallets to help Cornyn beat back a challenge from Paxton, arguing the race could become a costly disaster without immediate intervention… invest in Cornyn now or go broke trying to elect Paxton next fall. SLF projected it would cost between $25 million to $70 million to help Cornyn win the GOP nomination— or require $200 million to $250 million to save Paxton in the general election. Cornyn trails Paxton by 17 points in an average of 13 public and private polls taken during the first six months of 2025… 58% of Republican primary voters don’t believe Cornyn is conservative. That leaves Cornyn in a tough position to win a primary against the fire breathing— and scandal-ridden— Paxton.

Republicans believe they can change that by throwing money at the problem, and they’ve already begun.

SLF described the fact that “primary voters don’t view Cornyn as conservative” as the “[m]ost pressing problem.”

Nearly 40% of primary voters view Cornyn as “moderate” while another 19% view him as “very liberal” or “somewhat liberal.” Only 12% view him as “very conservative.” Meanwhile, 47% of primary voters viewed Paxton as “very conservative.”

Cornyn’s allies are eager to change these numbers. But the longtime GOP incumbent has fallen out of favor with conservatives in recent years.

Cornyn, who’s been in the Senate since 2002, has raised hundreds of millions of dollars over the years and helped deliver many of President Donald Trump’s biggest accomplishments. Cornyn was the Senate GOP whip during the initial two years of Trump’s first term.

But Cornyn has since drawn the ire of Texas conservatives, especially after partnering with Democrats on a bipartisan gun safety law in 2022 as a response to the murder of 19 children and two teachers in a mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas.

As the 2024 election drew nearer, Cornyn was among a handful of Republican senators who stated publicly that the GOP should move on from Trump, arguing he couldn’t defeat then-President Joe Biden in a general election.

What’s playing out in Texas is the GOP’s national identity crisis in miniature: a civil war between the carnival barkers and the country club fixers. The Paxton crowd wants chaos, confrontation and constant scandal; the Cornyn faction wants the same extremist agenda wrapped in a respectable suit and tie. Either way, the result is the same: attacks on democracy, culture-war crusades, and policies that serve the ultra-rich at everyone else’s expense. For Democrats, the temptation is to root for Paxton, the more toxic general election opponent. But in a state as big and complex as Texas, gambling on the worse Republican can blow up in your face— and the stakes here are too high to take lightly.

Democrats have been burned before by assuming the worst Republican is an easy general election opponent. Just look at Paul LePage’s 2010 upset in Maine. Democrats wrote off LePage as a fringe candidate unfit for office, and while they didn’t actively boost him in the primary, they failed to mount a strong enough response in the general. Thanks to a split opposition and low turnout, LePage scraped out a plurality win and went on to serve two damaging terms that pulled Maine sharply to the right. It’s a stark reminder that underestimating extremist Republicans, no matter how toxic, can have real consequences.