quote:
Republican Rep. Wesley Hunt is running for the U.S. Senate in Texas, defying Senate GOP leadership and adding a new element to an already contentious primary campaign.

The two-term Houston-area congressman said he’s running because he doesn’t believe Republican incumbent Sen. John Cornyn, who’s had a cool relationship with President Donald Trump, has shown he can beat Attorney General Ken Paxton, who’s running despite being shadowed by legal and personal issues.

“What I’ve seen in polling over the past few months is people want an alternative, and I’m going to give it to them,” Hunt said in an Associated Press interview on Sunday.

Senate Republican leaders have worried aloud that questions that have dogged Paxton, who entered the race in April, would cost the party many millions more dollars to defend in a general election, despite Texas’ Republican lean.

Yet, Senate Republican leaders including Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, have publicly chided Hunt, who’s been weighing a Senate campaign since April.

Hunt has been testing the waters as a potential third way for Texas Republicans as Cornyn and Paxton have waged a contentious battle of words in the media. Since the spring, Hunt and groups supporting him have spent $6.5 million on advertising in Texas, according to the ad-tracking service AdImpact.

Groups supporting Cornyn, however, have spent more than $21 million on television ads this year, according AdImpact, to promote the four-term senator and attack Paxton.

In a September memo, Thune and Scott said that Cornyn had narrowed his deficit with Paxton and that Hunt “continues to cling to the false narrative he pushed as a justification for his own ambitions.”

“There never was, and never will be, a tenable pathway for Hunt,” they said in the memo. “It’s time for the vanity project that could cost Republicans control of the Senate and dilute our resources to end.”

Hunt argued that it’s Senate Republicans who are wasting on Cornyn resources that could be used in other states to hold and perhaps expand the majority.

“This is not a vanity project. This is about giving the people of Texas a viable alternative,” Hunt told the AP. “Let’s stop the exercise in futility and get the right person for the job.”

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While Paxton has been a strong supporter of Trump, Hunt has kept close to the Republican president’s orbit. He was the first Republican to endorse him after the former president’s 2022 comeback campaign announcement, and he gave a prime-time speech on opening night of the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. He also campaigned 17 times for Trump last year, more than any other Republican surrogate.

Paxton has been shadowed by troubles including state and federal corruption investigations and a 2023 impeachment trial that exposed an extramarital affair. Though a state fraud indictment and federal corruption probe were dropped this year and the impeachment ended in acquittal, Paxton’s wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, announced in July she was filing for divorce “on biblical grounds.”

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Hunt’s entry into the race raises the potential of a runoff for the GOP nomination if no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote in Texas’ March 3 primary election.

It’s unclear how Hunt entering would factor in Republicans’ effort to hold their Senate majority in next year’s midterms.

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I remember our resident Houston politico (OWL?) mentioned several times Wesley Hunt might get into this race. Personally, I'm happy to see it. I now have someone to vote for. Cornyn needs to go home, or at least leave the Senate, and sorry...but Ken Paxton is a major POS, even by politician standards.

And before anyone whines about Hunt now splitting the anti-Cornyn vote, the winner of the GOP Primary must receive 50% +1 to win. So if Cornyn does get that, then there weren't enough anti-Cornyn votes in the first place to kick him out of D.C.

This post was edited on 10/7/25 at 6:56 am