Analysis: Why John Cornyn is still at risk of losing in Texas

WASHINGTON — Republicans aligned with the party establishment are excited that Texas Sen. John Cornyn has closed the gap with primary challenger Ken Paxton in his high-profile reelection race.

But the four-term incumbent is still extremely vulnerable. The GOP primary, now a three-way race between Cornyn, Paxton and Rep. Wesley Hunt, offers an example of how data can be presented to paint whatever picture you want to see. And using some of the senator’s past and present colleagues as a guide, Cornyn remains in a politically precarious situation.

Earlier this spring, Senate Leadership Fund, the leading Senate GOP outside group, pulled the fire alarm in the race with a survey showing Cornyn trailing Paxton, the state attorney general, by 16 points, 56% to 40%. It wasn’t a total surprise to people paying attention, but seeing concrete numbers publicly was jarring for many.

Cornyn and allies have spent nearly $30 million this year seeking to alter the race’s trajectory, with some success. The most recent SLF poll, conducted Sept. 20-22, showed both men running even. Another survey, conducted Sept. 19-21 by the University of Houston and Texas Southern University, had Cornyn at 44% and Paxton at 43% in the two-way ballot.

But the narrowing of the race is the glass-half-full scenario for Cornyn and his allies. The glass-half-empty case is that despite being in office for more than two decades and benefiting from millions of dollars in positive TV ads, the senator’s support among GOP primary voters has improved only at a glacial pace.

While Paxton’s initial lead has dissipated, Cornyn’s vote share has not improved dramatically, even according to data from allies. The senator was at 40% in the survey that found him trailing by 16 points and 39% in the poll that showed him running even. More broadly, in three May polls against Paxton before the bulk of the spending, Cornyn averaged 36% in support. In five polls from late August to the end of September, he averaged 38%, rounding up.

Historical context

A handful of senators have faced difficult primary challenges over the past decade or so, and most of those results could be concerning for Cornyn, even if they survived.

Republican Sen. Richard G. Lugar lost to Richard Mourdock in Indiana in 2012. Public polling in the race was limited, but Lugar topped 50% in just one internal survey out of at least nine publicly released polls. He ended up with 40% in the primary. The senator’s polling average was 43% over the course of the race, his support among primary voters wasn’t fundamentally different 10 months out from the election compared with right before, and he didn’t outperform the final pre-election polls.

There were two big Republican Senate primaries in 2014. Mitch McConnell fended off a high-profile challenge from Matt Bevin in Kentucky with 60% of the vote. But, unlike Cornyn and Lugar, McConnell consistently polled well ahead of Bevin by an average of 30 points (he won by 25 points) and was above 50% (56%, on average) in a dozen polls in the 10 months before the election. Cornyn’s numbers aren’t nearly that strong this cycle, at least not yet.

Thad Cochran’s 2014 race in Mississippi was a bit closer. The senator finished behind state Sen. Chris McDaniel 49.5% to 49% in the primary before winning the runoff 51% to 49% with rare help from Black voters.

Cochran’s support didn’t improve over the course of the race, which wasn’t surprising for a longtime incumbent. Early polling showed him between 44% and 54%, compared with between 39% and 45% in the days leading up to the election. Cochran lost support over the course of the race and only narrowly outperformed pre-election polls.

Looking further back, to 2010, GOP incumbent Lisa Murkowski lost her primary in Alaska to Joe Miller, 51% to 49%, but there’s not enough public polling data to draw comparisons with that race. (She went on to win the general election as a write-in candidate, with 39%.) In Pennsylvania, incumbent Arlen Specter lost the Democratic primary to Rep. Joe Sestak. But Specter had recently switched parties; while he was a longtime senator, he was not a longtime Democrat, so the race doesn’t feel as relevant to Cornyn’s situation. And in Utah, Mike Lee knocked off Sen. Robert F. Bennett, but Bennett didn’t garner enough support at the party convention and didn’t even make the primary ballot. So that also isn’t a great comparison.

Somewhat surprisingly, Cornyn might be most encouraged by the past primary performance of a Democratic colleague.

Early in the 2020 Massachusetts Senate primary, Sen. Edward J. Markey was polling between 28% and 44% and trailed Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy III by anywhere from a little (between 1 and 6 points) to a lot (14 and 17 points).

But about a month before the election, Markey’s standing started to improve. His polling support ticked up to between 44% and 56%, and he posted leads of between 2 and 15 points. He ultimately defeated Kennedy by 11 points.

It looks like Markey will have another tough primary this cycle, against Rep. Seth Moulton. But his 2020 race appears like an aberration, and incumbents generally struggle to improve their standing.

Back to reality

The good news for Cornyn is that the March 3 primary is still more than four months away. The bad news is that allies have already spent tens of millions of dollars trying to boost his standing, with limited success.

While Paxton’s baggage – a public divorce, past impeachment over bribery allegations, home mortgage questions and other issues – have received plenty of attention, a majority of the pro-Cornyn TV ad spending has been on positive spots meant to bolster his support among Republicans.

That investment seems to have successfully, and potentially necessarily, changed the narrative of the race. Earlier this year, there was discussion about Cornyn dropping out entirely, and it seemed far-fetched that President Donald Trump would back a candidate trailing by double digits. But Cornyn now has to hope future ad spending is more effective.

Hunt’s entrance into the primary on Oct. 6 changed the dynamic a bit. Cornyn’s allies have been extremely critical of the Houston-area congressman because they want to avoid an extended and expensive primary fight. Hunt’s candidacy increases the chances that no one receives more than 50%, leaving the top two candidates to move on to a May 26 runoff.

A three-way race lowers the threshold to make the runoff, but Cornyn’s support has been static in those ballot tests as well. In polls that include Hunt as an option, the incumbent has averaged 31%, including 33% in the initial SLF poll in May and 32% in the September poll.

Even if Cornyn secures a spot in the runoff, he’s back to the fundamental challenge of needing to boost his standing to win. In the 2014 Mississippi race, Cochran only improved his standing by 2 points from the primary to the runoff, but it was enough to win. And back in 2012, Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst finished ahead of Ted Cruz in the first round of the GOP Senate primary with 45 percent. He lost the runoff to Cruz, taking 43%.

That comparison isn’t perfect because Dewhurst was not an incumbent senator. But Dewhurst had been elected statewide four times and had more of an established profile heading into the race. While some Cornyn allies dismiss those comparisons, others admit that a runoff electorate may not favor the establishment-linked senator. Turnout often drops significantly — in the 2022 GOP primary for state attorney general, fewer than half as many voters showed up for the runoff as did in March — and Cornyn has struggled among the most partisan and engaged Texas GOP voters.

Trump remains a wild card. His support is often the difference maker in Republican primaries, but he hasn’t made a decision in this race. “I’d rather not comment on it right now,” he said at the end of August. “I like both guys. They’re both friends of mine, and they’re both good and very different.”

In their efforts to draw Trump into the race, Cornyn’s allies appear to be leveraging his desire to hold on to the House next year by warning that nominating Paxton could endanger GOP House candidates. The White House is clearly concerned about maintaining control of the House to implement Trump’s agenda and avoid investigations, which is why it directed Republicans in Texas and elsewhere to significantly redraw congressional maps to create more GOP-leaning seats.

But the public bedwetting about Texas Republicans losing House seats with Paxton at the top of the ticket seems to be rooted less in the numbers (considering GOP candidates would need to lose districts Trump carried by between 15 and 22 points under the doomsday scenario) and more in pushing the president to back Cornyn.

It remains to be seen how much of a drag Paxton would be as the GOP nominee. In 2018, he scored -5 on Inside Elections’ Vote Above Replacement metric, which measures the strength of a political candidate relative to a typical candidate from their party in the same state. But Paxton’s general election performance largely mirrored Sen. Ted Cruz’s that cycle. In 2022, Paxton’s VAR was just -0.8, and that was before his impeachment and other negative headlines. But it’s unclear how much of a liability he would really be.

Cornyn and his allies contend that there’s far more spending to come and they will overwhelm Paxton and Hunt on TV. But the size and cost of the state is challenging for everyone.

“Narrowing the gap doesn’t mean the job is done. That’s just the first job we needed to do,” Cornyn campaign senior adviser Matt Mackowiak said. “Now the job is to win, and we will.”