Nolte: Sen. John Cornyn’s Reelection Poll Numbers Worsen
U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) is facing worsening poll numbers should he choose to run for reelection in 2026.
According to a poll released Tuesday, Cornyn would lose a 2026 Republican primary race to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton by a whopping 22 points. Paxton is already at 50 percent support. Cornyn has just 28 percent support.
The UpOne Insights poll surveyed 600 Republican primary voters statewide in Texas on May 27 and 28. The margin of error is plus or minus four points.
Worse news for Cornyn is that only 27 percent of those polled want him to serve another term, while 54 percent want him out.
The 73-year-old Cornyn has been in the U.S. Senate since 2002.
This is the second recent poll to show Cornyn in serious reelection trouble. Last month, a Senate Leadership Fund poll showed Cornyn down 16 points to Paxton, 56 to 40 percent.
Not even a three-way contest that includes Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-TX) can bail Cornyn out. Paxton still wins the primary with 44 percent support to Cornyn’s 34 percent. Hunt receives 19 percent of the vote.
My colleague Bradley Jaye previously laid out Cornyn’s ongoing problems with Texas Republican voters. “Cornyn’s popularity in the state took a major hit during Joe Biden’s administration,” he explained, adding:
The Senator played a critical role in 2022 working to pass Biden’s gun control legislation, which funded state “red flag” laws and hindered many gun purchases. And in 2023 he served as a key force behind the scenes negotiating the Senate’s pro-migration bill — although he ultimately voted against the legislation after McConnell gave Republicans his blessing to oppose it once it was clear the bill would die.
Barring some bizarre twist, whoever wins the Republican primary in Texas will almost certainly win the general election. Democrats and their corporate media allies have spent two decades attempting to gaslight the American people into believing Texas is on the cusp of turning blue. If anything, the state has become redder over those same years.
What in the world Cornyn was thinking when he backed a Democrat gun control bill and that absurdly unnecessary immigration bill is beyond me. It’s one thing to be a centrist. It’s another to look like a sucker and squish. Backing gun control when you represent Texas? Texas? Backing an immigration bill that would have allowed even more illegal immigration when you represent Texas? Texas?
This isn’t 1991. Doing business with Democrats in 1991 was an entirely different thing than it is in 2025 when Democrats stand only for protecting illegal aliens, disarming us, emptying prisons, queering kids, allowing men to steal a woman’s sports accomplishment and then watch her shower… The Democrat way leads to madness and Texans understand that.
Should these polling numbers continue, Cornyn will likely be urged to retire, and he should retire rather than risk a bruising primary.
Being a squish when Western Civilization is at stake is a bad look, and Cornyn looks really bad, out of touch, and gullible.
John Nolte’s first and last novel, Borrowed Time, is winning five-star raves from everyday readers. You can read an excerpt here and an in-depth review here. Also available in hardcover and on Kindle and Audiobook.
