The Republican primary race for the U.S. Senate in Texas is proving that voters in the state are ready to boot out the GOP establishment and replace it with individuals who are supportive of President Donald Trump’s America First agenda. New polling data has revealed that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is ahead of incumbent Sen. John Cornyn and Rep. Wesley Hunt in the race for the party’s nomination.
A survey conducted in late January 2026 by the Hobby School of Public Affairs at the University of Houston discovered that 38% of likely voters in the GOP primary are intending to cast their ballots for Paxton in March. Cornyn is trailing Paxton by seven points (31%), with Hunt only pulling in 17%. Out of the total voters surveyed, only two percent picked a different candidate, with 12% undecided.
When it comes to which candidate Republican voters view favorably, Paxton once again took the top spot, with 72% saying they had a favorable opinion of him, while 22% said they had an unfavorable opinion. Hunt came in behind Paxton with 70% having a favorable opinion of the congressman and only 10% saying they held an unfavorable view of him. Cornyn came up short with only 61% of those surveyed having a favorable opinion and 30% having an unfavorable opinion.
According to Breitbart News, the poll surveyed 550 likely voters in both the Democratic and Republican primaries respectively, between the dates of January 20 and 31, with pollsters pointing out that the margin of error is 2.53 percentage points. Paxton got on his social media account on Monday writing, “Major independent poll shows me crushing Cornyn in the primary and outperforming him in the general.”
“The pollster also shows Cornyn’s numbers becoming much worse since September — despite him lighting tens of millions on fire that should have gone to other Senate races,” the attorney general’s post continued. A report published by Houston Public Media offered some insight into which of the three main candidates would provide President Trump with the most support for his agenda.
During a late-January appearance on The Mark Davis Show, Paxton said, “Cornyn’s never liked Trump. He didn’t want him to win the 2016 [election], I’ve got clips of that. He didn’t want him to win in 2024. He suggested he was a criminal. There’s nothing about John Cornyn that’s real right now. It’s all fake to win a primary, because he knows that the voters like Donald Trump.”
Hunt has expressed similar sentiments as Paxton about Cornyn’s support for Trump. During an interview on Newsmax, Hunt said, “There’s a reason why our vice president is 41 years old. There’s a reason why our secretary of state is in his early 50s. There’s a reason why our secretary of war is in his mid-40s. Because President Trump understands that we’re going to need leadership for the future, not just now, but for the next 8, 12, 16 years.”
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Cornyn himself, in comments to Houston Public Media, said, “There’s a lot at stake with President Trump’s second term of office. I’d like to continue to help him accomplish his priorities and goals. Unfortunately, my opponents are people who, frankly, just want to join those ranks of performance artists who want to come to Washington, D.C., and want to become famous, get the most clicks on social media and raise money, but the job entails a whole lot more than that.”
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