President Donald Trump still isn’t ready to tip his hand in the race for U.S. Senate in Texas. When asked about who he’ll support in the 2026 U.S. Senate Republican primary, the former president doubled down on previous comments that he “likes them both” when pressed about Attorney General Ken Paxton and Sen. John Cornyn.
For now, Trump is holding his fire — but the battle lines are already being drawn, and gun rights are at the center of it.
Paxton vs. Cornyn
On one side stands Attorney General Ken Paxton, who’s been endorsed by Texas Gun Rights PAC, its national affiliate National Association for Gun Rights PAC, and Gun Owners of America.
Paxton has earned a national reputation as America’s most pro-gun attorney general, suing the Biden administration repeatedly, including stopping the ATF’s attempted universal gun registration scheme dead in its tracks.
On the other side is Sen. John Cornyn, whose record reads like a wish list for the gun control lobby. Cornyn not only supported, but spearheaded major federal gun control pushes — from the failed “Fix NICS” gun registry expansion to the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA) in 2022. That law:
- Funded and incentivized red flag gun confiscation without due process.
- Expanded the NICS gun registry.
- Gave the ATF cover to push universal registration by forcing nearly all firearms transactions through FFLs.
For gun owners, the contrast couldn’t be clearer.
Cornyn’s Convenient Amnesia
Cornyn, however, has recently developed a bout of political amnesia, claiming he never backed Biden’s gun control agenda. That denial prompted Texas Gun Rights to blast him in a viral X post, reminding Texans of his leading role in advancing Biden’s BSCA.
Since then, Texas Gun Rights has launched a petition demanding Cornyn take a cognitive test, suggesting he has more in common with Joe Biden than many conservatives previously thought.
A High-Stakes Race
“This isn’t just another Senate race — it’s a referendum on the Second Amendment,” said Chris McNutt, President of Texas Gun Rights.
“Texans know who Ken Paxton is: the man who has gone to court time and again to stop Biden and the ATF from trampling our rights. And they know who John Cornyn is: the man who gave Biden the votes he needed to pass the biggest federal gun control in a generation. The choice couldn’t be starker.”
Texas on the Political Map
The Paxton–Cornyn fight is shaping up to be one of the highest-profile Senate races in America in 2026. It’s also the biggest political showdown in Texas, rivaled only by the now contentious Republican primary for Attorney General, where multiple heavyweights are vying to replace Paxton.
For conservatives, for Trump, and especially for gun owners, Texas is once again ground zero.
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Sometimes doing nothing is the best course of action. I think Trump holding fire right now is the smart move.
If he endorses Paxton, he permanently loses all influence and leverage over Cornyn, who then might well pull an Arlen Specter and defect to the Dems. OTOH, if he doesn’t endorse anyone (until, perhaps, the very last minute), he can keep Cornyn on the reservation (notice how Cornyn has tacked sharply to the right since the election).
Additionally, if it looks like Paxton is going to win, PDT can then quietly go to Cornyn and offer him a cushy ambassadorship or other administration post as a face-saving way for Cornyn to exit the race.
OTGH (kudos to those of you that catch that reference), if PDT endorsed Paxton early and yet more scandals about Paxton later emerge (he seems to have a never-ending stream of them), then Trump both alienates Cornyn and wastes political capital.
Now will the Texas gun owners come out enforce and vote for the best candidate???
I’m glad president trump deported lots and lots of illegal alien democrat voters in texas.
Paxton is pure poison. You wanna lose the general election…nominate Paxton. Cornyn has a long history of protecting gun rights. Yeah, he got caught up in the post Uvalde hysteria, tried to find some common ground (hey, none of us want crazy people to have guns), and made a mistake, but he’s been a solid conservative for Texas for a long time with an A+ NRA at least until that vote. We’d be insane to nominate Paxton…and I say that as a native Texan/lifelong conservative and lifetime NRA member.
The NRA supports gun control so I see why you support Cornyn. There’s much more to Cornyn being a RINO than gun rights.
The NRA has done more to protect 2A and individual gun rights than any organization in the history of America. They got a black eye over fiscal issues, that they’ve addressed, but if you own guns and aren’t a member of the NRA…you’re just letting others carry your water for you. And I’ve noticed this about “ideological purists” on both sides…eventually, NO ONE is “pure” enough…and like crabs in a bucket they end up consuming one another.
Cornyn threw us under the bus. Then he lied and said he wasn’t going to run again so people would quit talking about it. Now he’s running again and pretending like he did nothing wrong.