U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) shows a poster during Jared Isaacman's , U.S. President Donald Trump's nominee to be administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) a Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 9, 2025. REUTERS/Ken Cedeno
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) is fighting for his political life, according to new reporting from Axios.
The longtime Texas senator "is boasting a 99% voting record with President Trump in a new memo provided first to Axios," said the report. This comes as Cornyn "and his firebrand primary challenger, state Attorney General Ken Paxton, are battling to win Trump's coveted endorsement in what is quickly shaping up to be the most dramatic and expensive GOP primary of the cycle."
"Cornyn's team is using fellow Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R) as a foil, tallying the votes to tout that Cruz has voted against Trump more often than Cornyn," said the report. "Over Trump's first term and so far in his second, Cornyn voted in line with Trump 99.2% of the time while Cruz voted with him 96.6% of the time, according to the data, which removed duplicative procedural votes."
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Paxton is an extreme-right state law enforcement official who has had his hands in everything from purging abortion rights from the state, to signing onto Trump's 2020 efforts to try to overturn that presidential election. He has a long record of legal controversy, facing a yearslong indictment for securities fraud only resolved last year, and was impeached by the Texas House over a bribery and retaliation scandal within his office, but fended off conviction in the Senate and has tried to position himself as the true heir to MAGA in Texas.
Cornyn has sought to tarnish Paxton for his legal problems, at one point responding to the latter's attacks on him over insufficient fervor on border issues by replying, "Your criminal defense lawyers are calling."
For his part, Cruz is staying out of endorsing in the race, and Senate GOP leadership is fighting to protect Cornyn, privately urging Trump to give the incumbent senator his endorsement.
A group backing Paxton has also courted Trump by airing an ad in support of the attorney general in Palm Beach, Florida, where Trump's country club is located.