Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) trails Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton by 22 points, according to a new independent poll of the Senate GOP primary.
Paxton snagged 50% of the vote to Cornyn’s 28% in the survey, which was obtained by Punchbowl News. And here’s another tough finding for Cornyn: Only 27% of those polled want to see him reelected while 54% want someone new. Cornyn has been in office since 2002.
Republican pollster Robert Blizzard conducted the poll of 600 Republican primary voters on May 27-28. It was done on behalf of the Educational Freedom Institute, a nonpartisan nonprofit that advocates for school choice programs.
This isn’t the only poll in the past month that has shown some deeply unsettling numbers for Cornyn. We scooped that the Senate Leadership Fund, the GOP leadership-aligned super PAC backing Cornyn, found the incumbent down 16 points in a survey conducted from April 27 to May 1.
When asked in a recent TV interview why he was trailing Paxton in early polls, Cornyn attributed it to “primarily name identification.” But only 7% of voters hadn’t heard of Cornyn, per Blizzard’s poll, while 5% had not heard of Paxton.
Both men had favorability ratings that were rightside up, although Paxton’s was higher. Cornyn’s was 48/37 while Paxton’s was 65/22. Check out the full crosstabs here.
Scoop on Tillis’ big hires: Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) has enlisted President Donald Trump’s pollster Tony Fabrizio for his reelection campaign, a big hire as the North Carolina Republican has weathered intense criticism from Trump World in recent months.
In addition to Fabrizio, Tillis is announcing several other campaign hires this morning, per a list first shared with Punchbowl News. That includes Tim Saler, who was Trump’s chief data consultant, and Jim McCray, who helped lead the Trump campaign’s fundraising.
The Trump World connections are important for Tillis, who could face a viable primary challenge from the right. Yet he’s also gearing up for a potentially difficult general election in a state that has elected Democrats to several statewide offices in recent elections.
Tillis’ steadfast support for Ukraine has caused some friction with Trump allies. More recently, Tillis effectively tanked Trump’s nominee to serve as U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Ed Martin, over Martin’s posture toward the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. Tillis also had a dust-up earlier this year with Arthur Schwartz, a key figure in Trump’s orbit and a close confidant of Vice President JD Vance.
