GOP leaders in Washington are ramping up pressure on Republican Rep. Wesley Hunt to drop out of the Texas Senate race, warning that his candidacy could cost their party tens of millions of dollars and even upend their midterm map.
But a defiant Hunt told CNN in an interview that he is “absolutely” staying in the heated three-way race against long-time incumbent Sen. John Cornyn and firebrand Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, even as senior Republicans accuse him of being a “spoiler” in the race that is now all but certain to lead to a costly runoff.
Hunt, a 44-year-old combat veteran and two-term House member, revealed that he planned to officially file for the race this week, setting aside weeks of GOP speculation about whether he would continue with his insurgent Senate campaign or opt to stay in his Houston-area seat instead.
“If Senate leadership does not like me being in this race, you know what I say? Good, because Senate leadership does not pick the leadership in Texas,” Hunt said, insisting that he is the only candidate who can win both the primary and the general election without costing “hundreds of millions of dollars.”
“This is like a David and Goliath kind of story. I have a couple of smooth stones to throw at him, but guess what? They are very effective,” Hunt said, arguing the base is not with the 73-year-old Cornyn, who has held his seat since 2002.
“The people of Texas are looking for an alternative, and it’s absolutely my job to give them one,” Hunt said.
Like Paxton, Hunt is a MAGA loyalist and courting the endorsement of President Donald Trump, who has been lobbied hard by Senate Majority Leader John Thune and other top Republicans to clear the field for Cornyn. But multiple people familiar with the matter have said Trump is unlikely to endorse in the coming weeks – and could wait to choose a candidate until a clear favorite emerges ahead of the March 3 primary.
But that would amount to a huge gamble for Trump. If no candidate wins an outright majority in the primary, then the top finishers would battle in another expensive clash two months later: A May 26 runoff election.
With Hunt in the race, the chances of one candidate winning an outright majority in March are much dimmer.
Plus, there’s real fear that the candidates would be badly battered through months of a grueling primary and runoff – and could give Democrats a shot to pull off an upset in Texas, something the party hasn’t done in a statewide race since 1994. And Democrats are salivating at the prospect of facing Paxton, who has weathered scandals in the state including an impeachment effort just two years ago.
Cornyn warns that the additional months of a campaign would siphon away tens of millions of dollars that could be spent in other states Republicans must win in order to keep the majority.
“He can’t win, so this could well be the end of his political career if he decides to make this race, and he may be thinking about that,” Cornyn told CNN, referring to Hunt’s decision to run for his seat.
Hunt, for his part, brushed off his opponent’s criticism. “I have survived combat. I flew 55 combat air missions in Baghdad. The end of my political career – I’m still alive and well.”
And, Hunt added, “at the end of the day, I am not going to be a 30-year guy that’s hung around the hoop for this long and not pass the mantle on to somebody else when it’s time for you to go.”
“The United States Senate is not a retirement community,” he said.
The increasingly nasty barbs between Hunt and Cornyn have created an unusual dynamic in the three-man race. Paxton — who remains in a virtual tie with Cornyn in a recent poll — has largely stayed on the sidelines while Hunt and Cornyn largely begin to pummel each other. Paxton has spent only $1 million on the race through September 30, compared to Cornyn’s $3.5 million and Hunt’s $2.3 million, according to fundraising data filed for the most recent quarter.
And Hunt sidestepped criticisms of Paxton, who has made headlines over issues like a messy divorce and for reportedly claiming three houses as his primary mortgage.
“I’m not getting in people’s personal lives because that’s just not how I roll,” Hunt said when asked about Paxton.
Paxton declined an interview with CNN through a spokesman.
The stakes of the Senate battle are high, with GOP leaders planning to spend as much as it takes to back Cornyn through both a primary and a runoff, according to multiple people familiar with the internal discussions.
Pro-Cornyn groups have dominated the air waves so far: Cornyn-aligned outside groups have spent roughly $40 million out of the $52.5 million total spent on ads in the GOP primary as of last week, according to figures compiled by the ad-tracking service AdImpact.
Many Cornyn allies are furious at Hunt’s refusal to bow out, arguing that money spent to boost Cornyn so far could be much better spent in battleground contests like North Carolina or Michigan in a midterm environment that’s likely to favor Democrats. For Democrats to win the Senate, they’ll need to pick up four seats, meaning they’ll have to hold every one of their own seats while picking up at least two in red states – with one of them potentially Texas, where they have their own messy primary to navigate.
One Cornyn supporter involved in the race said their allies see Hunt as a “spoiler” adding unnecessary stressors to the race. The person added that Hunt has been told repeatedly, “including by very senior Republicans,” to bow out of the race because, they say, he has no path to victory.
But Hunt says that communication has never come from inside Trump’s orbit. Pressed on whether he has ever been discouraged from running by someone in the White House, Hunt said: “Nobody has told me a word.”
Trump remains the biggest factor in the race.
Behind the scenes, Cornyn and top GOP Senate leaders have stepped up efforts in recent weeks to win over Trump and convince him to endorse as soon as possible. At a recent breakfast at the White House, Cornyn and Thune again made the case to Trump that he has closed the gap in polling after initial polls showed the incumbent senator trailing Paxton by wide margins in the primary, according to multiple people familiar with the exchange.
During his last conversation with Trump, Cornyn echoed what GOP leaders have also stressed to Trump: it could save a lot of money for other key races.
“We’ll spend a lot of money that could be spent more productively elsewhere,” Cornyn said, when asked about his message to the president. “If I’m at the top of the ticket in November, chances are that it will help down ballot races including these congressional seats that are now in litigation. So I think it’s in the president’s best interest, and that’s what I’ve explained to him.”
It’s not Cornyn’s only overture to the president. He also recently made a huge break in his own long-time stance on eliminating the filibuster to align more closely with Trump’s views. Cornyn, so far, has made the most outward efforts to secure that Trump endorsement, with weeks of flattering tweets and shifting of some positions that have caught the attention of many Trump’s allies.
Thune and the Senate campaign chief, Sen. Tim Scott, have also repeatedly made Cornyn’s case to Trump, according to people familiar with the discussions. And Thune has personally helped with Cornyn’s fundraising operation, traveling to Texas last week and phoning donors to secure more support, another person said.
Multiple people close to Paxton, however, believe he is in the strongest position for Trump’s endorsement, if, or when, the president decides to choose a side.
“It ends the race for us the moment it comes out. But him staying out of the race is good for us too. And it’s pretty fatal for Cornyn,” one person close to Paxton told CNN.
Allies of both Hunt and Paxton told CNN that their campaigns are keeping in close touch with the White House. Both campaigns are regularly sending internal polling to Trump’s advisers, according to multiple people familiar with the outreach. This summer, Paxton even flew to Scotland for a brief interaction with Trump at his new golf course, as CNN previously reported.
“He’s following the polling very closely,” Cornyn said of Trump, after speaking with the president in late October about the race.
“I just confirmed what he already knew, which is that we were now essentially in a tie with Paxton. And now with Wesley Hunt in the race, he’s looking for us to continue the trend and to show that we’re likely going to be the winner in the primary,” Cornyn said. “As he and I have discussed, if he were to make an endorsement, the primary would be over. But he’s not ready to do that yet.”
Asked if he would drop out of the race if Trump endorsed Cornyn, Hunt made clear he wasn’t going anywhere.
“Donald John Trump’s endorsement is absolutely incredible in any Republican primary in this great nation, but I’m sorry you cannot revive that dead campaign,” Hunt said of Cornyn’s bid. “Not even Donald Trump can do that, in my humble opinion. So that’s why I got in this race, to give him an option.”
Hunt and Paxton have both sharply criticized Cornyn for his complicated relationship with Trump. The GOP incumbent has rarely broken with Trump on a key vote and — as the former Senate GOP whip — helped pass Trump’s marquee tax cuts bill during his first term.
In recent years, however, Cornyn has angered MAGA loyalists for certain remarks about Trump, including his reaction to the January 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol when Cornyn called the president’s language that day “reckless.” (Cornyn ultimately voted to acquit Trump during the Senate’s impeachment trial on the matter, unlike his fellow GOP senator facing a brutal primary next year, Sen. Bill Cassidy.)
The senior Texas senator patched up ties with Trump during his 2024 reelection bid. But many hard-right Republicans took notice when Cornyn cut deals with then-President Joe Biden over a pricey bill designed to shore up the US chip-making industry over foreign rivals, as well as a gun safety bill that Cornyn personally shepherded through Congress after a deadly elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, in 2022.
Hunt has repeatedly hit Cornyn for those past votes. Cornyn, meanwhile, has attacked Hunt on another matter: Missing votes in Congress altogether, accusing him of missing more than a quarter of House votes just this year.
The junior House member chalked up his absences, in part, to his son’s time in the NICU when he first came to Congress and, later, his time as a Trump surrogate, criss-crossing the country to speak at rallies and meet with voters in the 2024 race.
Asked about his missed votes this year, Hunt pushed back.
“Are we going to really talk about missed votes? I mean, what is this elementary school? I mean, what do I get a certificate for showing up to work and voting on naming another post office after Sacagawea?” a fiery Hunt said.
His retort to Cornyn: “Maybe you should have missed more votes,” criticizing his voting record.
