Welcome to the end of the most expensive Senate primary in US history! What did we get for all that money? A debate over ... albatrosses:
No, not that kind of albatross. John Cornyn hopes to salvage his position in the US Senate by arguing that his primary challenger, Attorney General Ken Paxton, will be the kind of electoral albatross that voters won't buy in November. He told Fox & Friends host Lawrence Jones this morning that Republicans will have to commit "hundreds of millions of dollars" to salvage the seat against Democrats' latest Beto, state representative James Talarico:
"Ken Paxton will be an albatross."
— FOX & Friends (@foxandfriends) May 26, 2026
Senator @JohnCornyn sounds the alarm on a potential Ken Paxton nomination, warning a messy primary could puncture party prospects down ballot in the Lone Star State.
"If he is the nominee, it'll take hundreds of millions of dollars to try to… pic.twitter.com/IECrXvoMR2
"If he is the nominee, it'll take hundreds of millions of dollars to try to save him, and it's likely not to be successful because the mainstream media loves Talarico. It's like the second coming of Beto O'Rourke. And you remember what that was like."
"And so I can help the ticket. I can help down ballot. I know the president cares a lot about the congressional races that are right below the Senate race, and I won by ten points in 2020. So I think I can be the most help to the president and his agenda in the last two years of his term of office and all the down ballot races."
Well, maybe, but Cornyn has already spent tens of millions of dollars (at least) against Paxton. Has that worked against the controversial AG? In thirteen polls since the primary in early March, Cornyn has led in only three, and all three by a single point. Paxton has led in nine (with one tie), and has led in the four most recent polls by double digits:
- Quantus Insights - 53/43
- SoCal Strategies** - 57/35
- GSG (D)** - 52/40
- Remington Research (R)** - 47/36
Cornyn's making a general-election argument, though. Does it hold up? Right now, Talarico holds an edge over Cornyn in the RCP aggregate average for head-to-head polling, 42.8/42.3. That's largely due to a +7 outlier from the University of Texas for the Democrat, but Cornyn doesn't have a lead outside the margin of error in any of the four polls RCP has aggregated. Talarico has a slightly larger lead over Paxton, 44.3/42.8, but that UT poll's +8 is distorting this too. The other three polls show a dead heat in this matchup, too.
Cornyn may be correct, but it's just as likely that Talarico's ceiling will be 45-46%, and that the end of the fight within the Texas GOP over the runoff will allow support to coalesce behind either candidate. We'll see soon enough, but expect a pretty early call for Paxton tonight after the polls close at 8 pm ET. A Cornyn win would be a polling scandal the likes of which we have yet to see ... which is, of course, possible, even if unlikely.
Democrats may end up with their own albatross in TX-35. The newly drawn district in San Antonio has runoffs for both parties, but the national spotlight has fixed on the fight between Maureen Galindo and Bexar County Sheriff Johnny Garcia. Galindo has pledged to transform ICE detention centers into camps for "Zionists," and to castrate them while imprisoned. Galindo tried walking that back to apply solely to "billionaire Zionists," which ... isn't much better. Incredibly, her Instagram post is still up as of this afternoon, even after Democrats – including Talarico – got forced into rote denunciations. Talarico had better pray that Garcia wins in TX-35, because Galindo will be a real albatross in the general election, and not just in Texas.
Will they avoid it? Maybe not ...
Do Texas Democrats want a "Marjorie Taylor Blue?" pic.twitter.com/kIkPQt8TIC
— Olivia Reingold (@Olivia_Reingold) May 26, 2026
Finally, we also have a runoff in the GOP primary for Attorney General, the office that Paxton is vacating for his Senate run. Retiring House Republican Chip Roy is going up against self-funding state senator Mayes Middleton in another race that played heavily on TV and radio here in Texas. Roy trailed by eight points in the primary, but he has spent some real coin trying to paint Middleton as soft on shari'a law and MAGA priorities. A University of Houston poll earlier this month showed Middleton up nine points in the runoff, but Roy pushed back yesterday:
Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, pushed back Monday on polling showing him trailing in Tuesday’s Republican runoff for Texas attorney general, telling Newsmax that his campaign’s internal numbers show him ahead and gaining momentum against state Sen. Mayes Middleton.
“We are very much seeing our polling showing us in the lead and moving forward in the right trend,” Roy told “Finnerty.”
Well ... maybe? Roy's ad campaign has been ferocious over the last few weeks. Roy has crossed swords with Donald Trump in the past, though, and voters in GOP primaries have not been terribly forgiving of that.
Our election-night partners Decision Desk HQ will join us again tonight to provide real-time results in these contests, along with a couple of others of interest below. We will update as necessary, but if the polls are correct, we may get an answer to the Paxton-Cornyn contest pretty early. If so, John may give us the skinny on that separately. And as for the albatross argument, that may expire faster than we'd expect, too.
“Hell no,” one Cornyn voter told me today when asked if he could vote for Paxton if he wins the nomination.
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) May 26, 2026
Other Cornyn supporters said they would vote for Paxton.
On the split on the right ahead of tonight pic.twitter.com/EyCx8fptvZ
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