Austin, Texas (AP) – Attorney General of Texas, Ken Paxton, runs for the US Senate in a main challenge against the Republican Senator John Cornyn and is probably one of the most controversial and costly competitions of the GOP from 2026.
Paxton, a close ally of President Donald Trump, made the announcement on Tuesday after he had spent more than a year with a Senate challenge. During this time, Paxton tried to position himself as a national leader under the Ascendant Hard Right of the GOP and to start some of the first criminal investigations in the United States for abortion bans and gender-known care for transgender youth.
His entry into the race, which he made in an interview about “The Ingraham Angle” by Fox News, is no longer shaded by legal problems, which hung over him for almost a decade, but his ability to win the re -election twice.
“I know us for the US Senate to fight for the agenda of President Trump and bring a slanter to the DC establishment,” said Paxton in one position to X. “Together we send John Cornyn Packing.”
Cornyn’s campaign replied by describing his challenger as “fraud” and leaning in Paxon’s historical elevation in 2023 after eight of his closest helpers accused him of corruption and reported him to the FBI. Paxton was later acquitted in a process, the Texas Senate, where his wife is a senator but was not allowed to vote.
“This will be a spirited campaign and we assure Texans that you will have a real choice when this race is over,” said Cornyn’s campaign in a statement.
Paxon’s decision to enter the breed emphasizes his political resistance and popularity of Republicans in Texas after a decade of legal problems, which sometimes seemed to endanger his future: criminal offenses relapse, impact on office after an extraordinary dissolution of his closest adjutants and an FBI corruption examination. Paxton reached a contract to end the criminal proceedings and the bidges government decided quietly not to pursue it.
Cornyn, a respected and popular senator at the GOP conference in Washington, probably has to face its most competitive campaign since taking office in 2002.
He recently lost his offer to lead the GOP as the majority leader of the Senate in November after working as No. 2 by Sen. Mitch McConnell for several years. Cornyn, a former Attorney General and Attorney General of the Supreme Court of the Supreme Court of Texas, helped the party during his decades of career and worked with Democrats on cross -party bills.
Cornyn has received criticism from Paxton and other Republicans after he had proposed that Trump may not be the best Republican candidate for the 2024 presidential election.
Paxton has also expressed dissatisfaction with the support of Cornyn through a cross -party weapon bill from 2022, which reinforced the background exams for buyers under the age of 21, law enforcement for non -licensed sellers and funds for youthful psychiatric services according to the Uvalde, Texas, the elementary school, in which 19 children and two teachers were killed, and two teachers.
In the middle of several legal battles, the Attorney General in Texas has become a well -known personality of the right against his legal dispute against former President Joe Biden. Remarkably, Paxton directed a lawsuit that tried to lift Trump’s loss against Biden in 2020, which the US Supreme Court had rejected.
In 2023, the Texas House controlled by GOP, Paxton, voted to complain about bribes in connection with a wealthy real estate dispenser before his acquittal in the Senate, in which Paxton was once legislators. The Ministry of Justice decided not to carry out his investigation by Paxton because of the allegations in the past few weeks of the term of the former president, two people who are familiar with the matter who spoke to the Associated Press on the condition of anonymity.
At the beginning of this month, a district court awarded a lawsuit in a lawsuit in a whistleblower in a whistleblower after they were released to the FBI shortly after reporting on Paxon’s actions. Paxon’s office said he would make an appeal.
In 2022, when Paxton was most recently on the ballot, Republican George P. Bush Paxons made legal problems with the cornerstone of a primary challenge. Paxton easily won in a drain.
A democrat does not still have to take part in Texas in the Senate next year, where your party has not won a nationwide office for more than 30 years.
___
Alanna Durkin Associated Press Writers, Alanna Durkin, and Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report.
___
Nadia Lathan is a member of the Corps for the “Associated Press/Report” initiative for America Statehouse News. The report for America is a non -profit National Service program that reports journalists in local news editorial offices on hidden topics.
