Three months before Texas voters head to the 2026 primary, Republican Sen. John Cornyn has built a slim lead in the cutthroat GOP primary in the Lone Star State, according to a new poll.
surveyAccording to the poll, commissioned by the super PAC Texans for a Conservative Majority supporting Cornyn, 35% of likely Republican primary voters support Cornyn, while 33% support Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, 18% support Rep. Wesley Hunt and 14% are undecided. Cornyn has shown positive momentum over Paxton since October, while Hunt trails the 23-year-old president by double digits, according to a polling report obtained exclusively by the Daily Caller News Foundation. (RELATED: Former Biden administration official in charge of unaccompanied children says he doesn't believe in deportation)
Although Khanta October 6 entrance While the contest threatened to shake up the Senate battle between Cornyn and Paxton, the two-term House lawmaker continues to trail the duo.
“The data is clear, this will still be a two-person race, and Texans are not buying Wesley Hunt's bullshit,” Aaron Whitehead, executive director of Texans for a Conservative Majority, said in a statement. “Anyone who says otherwise is either lying or needs to go to campaign school.”
The poll of 600 likely primary voters was conducted between November 20 and 25 and has a margin of error of 4%. Texans for the Conservative Majority used Peak Insights to conduct the poll.
A Hunt campaign spokesman accused the pro-Cornyn group of “fabricating numbers” and directed the DCNF to a recent poll commissioned by a pro-Hunt super PAC that showed the congressman with a slight lead over the incumbent.
votereleased Nov. 24 showed Hunt in second place, one point ahead of Cornyn within the poll's 3.3% margin of error. Polling for Hunt found that 36% of likely voters support Paxton, 26% support Hunt, 25% support Cornyn and 14% are still undecided.
“It is no surprise that the same campaign and D.C. machine that spent $50 million supporting a zombie candidate is now pushing a poll that is unlike any credible public poll in Texas,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
“Every reputable poll released recently shows the same thing: Wesley Hunt is rising and John Cornyn has been pushed into third place,” the spokesman added.
The Hunt survey is the first survey at Decision Desk HQ. totality public and private polls of three-way primary with Hunt leading Cornyn.
If the election were held today, no candidate would win a majority of the vote in the March 3 primary, according to a recent poll of the race. As a result, the top two vote-getters will face off in a runoff election on May 26, prolonging an increasingly bitter battle in some of the country's most expensive media markets.
WASHINGTON, DC – NOVEMBER 19: Chairman Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) (L) speaks during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill on November 19, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Andrew Harnick/Getty Images)
Net support for all three candidates has fallen over the past month, according to the poll, as groups supporting Cornyn and Hunt ran millions of negative ads across Texas.
Paxton's campaign and affiliated groups have largely stayed out of the ad wars as virtually every poll shows the candidate likely to win the seat in the expected runoff election.
Polling for Cornyn found that Hunt's net support among likely primary voters dropped by six points between October and November 2025, although most respondents expressed no opinion or were unfamiliar with the candidate. By comparison, only 4% of likely voters were unaware of Cornyn; 5% did not know about Paxton.
The poll also showed Hunt losing popularity in his home media market of Houston.
According to the poll, Hunt's approval has dropped -25 percentage points over the past month – from 67/3% favorable to 51/12% – in the Houston media market.
The polling protocol was an oversample of Houston primary voters, which has a margin of error of plus or minus five percentage points.
A group of Cornyn supporters recently rolled out ad highlighting Hunt's missed congressional votes, referring to the candidate as “Mr. No-Show.” Hunt pretty much attributed his absence from the campaign trail during the 2024 cycle and spending time with family after the birth of his son.
The poll found that Cornyn's net support fell eight points between October and November, although 57% of likely primary voters still expressed a favorable opinion of him.
Cornyn, backed by more than $40 million in advertising spent on his behalf, has improved significantly in the polls since the early months of the race. May 2025 survey found Cornyn trailed Paxton by double digits, but he has since steadily chipped away at the attorney general's lead.
The poll also showed Paxton's net favorability fell 19 points between October and November. The attorney general has faced a series of attacks over alleged ethical violations and has split from his wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, who filed in the summer for a divorce on “biblical grounds.”
The polling in support of Cornyn largely matches the Ragnar Research study. survey Commissioned by the Senate Leadership Fund, which supports Cornyn, published November 24. The poll, which has a margin of error of 4%, shows Cornyn leading the primary field with 32% support, followed by Paxton with 31% support and Hunt with 21%.
All three are vying for President Donald Trump's endorsement, although the president has yet to say he will back a specific candidate.
Texas Democrats are hoping a long, drawn-out fight for the GOP nomination could hurt the GOP nominee heading into the general election.
Texas Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett could make the increasingly crowded Senate race even more confusing. Anti-Trump monger who led Democratic primary field in several hypothetical matchups, said she will announce her plans for the race by the Dec. 8 filing deadline.
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