EXCLUSIVE: John Cornyn Slightly Ahead Of Closest Competition In Brutal Senate Primary, Poll Shows

Three months before Texas voters head to the 2026 primary polls, Republican Sen. John Cornyn has carved out a slight lead in the Lone Star State’s brutal GOP primary, according to new polling.

The survey, commissioned by pro-Cornyn super PAC Texans for a Conservative Majority, finds 35% of likely Republican primary voters back Cornyn, while 33% support Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, 18% back Rep. Wesley Hunt and 14% are undecided. Cornyn showed positive movement over Paxton since October, with Hunt trailing behind the 23-year incumbent by double digits, according to a polling memo obtained exclusively by the Daily Caller News Foundation. (RELATED: Ex-Biden Admin Official In Charge Of Unaccompanied Children Says She Doesn’t Believe In Deportation)

Although Hunt’s Oct. 6 entry into the contest threatened to shake up the Senate battle between Cornyn and Paxton, the two-term House lawmaker continues to lag behind the duo.

“The data is clear, this continues to be a two-man race and Texans aren’t buying Wesley Hunt’s bullshit,” Texans for a Conservative Majority Executive Director Aaron Whitehead said in a statement. “Anyone who says differently is either lying or needs to go to campaign school.”

The survey of 600 likely primary voters was conducted between Nov. 20 and Nov. 25 and has a margin of error of 4%. Texans for a Conservative Majority tapped Peak Insights to conduct the poll.

A spokesperson for the Hunt campaign accused the pro-Cornyn group of working to “fabricate numbers” and directed the DCNF to a recent survey commissioned by a pro-Hunt super PAC showing the congressman with a slight lead over the incumbent.

The poll, released on Nov. 24, showed Hunt cinching a second-place spot over Cornyn by one point within the survey’s 3.3% margin of error. The pro-Hunt poll found 36% of likely voters supporting Paxton, 26% supporting Hunt, 25% supporting Cornyn and 14% still undecided.

“It’s no surprise that the same campaign and D.C. machine that burned through $50 million propping up a zombie candidate is now promoting a poll that doesn’t resemble any credible public survey in Texas,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

“Every reputable poll released recently shows the same thing: Wesley Hunt is surging, and John Cornyn has been pushed into third place,” the spokesperson added.

The pro-Hunt survey is the first poll within Decision Desk HQ’s aggregate of public and private polling of the three-way primary ballot where Hunt leads Cornyn. 

If the election was held today, no candidate would win a majority of the vote in the March 3 primary, according to the recent polling on the race. As a result, the top two vote-getters would then have to compete in a May 26 runoff election, prolonging the increasingly bitter contest in some of the most expensive media markets in the country.

All three candidates’ net favorables have fallen over the past month, according to the survey, as groups supporting Cornyn and Hunt put up millions in negative advertising across Texas.

Paxton’s campaign and allied groups have largely sat out of the ad wars as virtually every poll shows the candidate is likely to secure a spot in the expected run-off election.

The pro-Cornyn survey found Hunt’s net favorables declining by six points among likely primary voters between October and November 2025, though a majority of respondents expressed no opinion or were unfamiliar with the candidate. By comparison, only 4% of likely voters were not aware of Cornyn; 5% were not aware of Paxton.

The poll also found Hunt losing steam in his home media market of Houston.

Hunt’s approval plummeted a net -25 percentage points over the past month — shifting from 67/3% favorable to 51/12% — in the Houston media market, according to the survey.

The polling memo included an oversample of Houston primary election voters, which has a margin of error of plus or minus five percentage points.

The pro-Cornyn group recently rolled out an ad spotlighting Hunt’s missed congressional votes, referring to the candidate as “Mr. No Show.” Hunt has largely attributed his absences to campaigning during the 2024 cycle and spending time with his family after the birth of his son.

The poll found Cornyn’s net favorables falling eight points between October and November, though 57% of likely primary voters still expressed a favorable view of him.

Cornyn, buoyed by more than $40 million in advertising spent on his behalf thus far, has largely improved his performance in polling since the opening months of the race. A May 2025 poll found Cornyn trailing Paxton by double digits, but he has since steadily eroded the attorney general’s lead.

The survey also found Paxton’s net favorables plummeting 19 points between October and November. The attorney general faced a series of attacks over alleged ethical failings and is separated from his wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, who filed for divorce over the summer on “biblical grounds.”

The pro-Cornyn poll largely tracks with a Ragnar Research survey commissioned by the pro-Cornyn Senate Leadership Fund released Nov. 24. The poll, with a 4% margin of error, shows Cornyn leading the primary field with 32% support, followed by Paxton at 31% support and Hunt clocking in at 21%.

All three men are vying for President Donald Trump’s endorsement, though the president has not yet indicated he will back a particular candidate.

Texas Democrats are hoping a long, drawn-out fight for the Republican nomination could damage the GOP candidate who advances to the general election.

Democratic Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett could make the increasingly crowded Senate race even messier. The anti-Trump firebrand, who has led the Democratic primary field in several hypothetical matchups, said she will announce her plans about whether to enter the race by the Dec. 8 filing deadline.

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