U.S. Sen. John Cornyn appears to be closing the gap with his main rival in the March 2026 Republican primary, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, according to a new poll from Texas Southern University's Barbara Jordan Public Policy Research and Survey Center.
The poll released Tuesday also shows former U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke, who is not a declared candidate, leading former Congressman Colin Allred in the Democratic primary by a wide margin.
The TSU poll shows Paxton leading Cornyn in a two-person Republican primary race by 5 percentage points. A similar poll conducted by TSU in May found Paxton leading by 9 percentage points.
"Cornyn has substantially narrowed the gap both related to our prior surveys but especially related to many of the surveys that were circulating earlier in the summer that had him down by 10, 15, 20 points or so," said Mark Jones, a Rice University political scientist who co-directed the study.
One of the main factors helping Cornyn narrow the gap has been money. Filings with the Federal Election Commission show that, as of the end of June, Cornyn had outspent Paxton by more than 7-to-1, after which the incumbent senator still had more than twice as much cash on hand as the state attorney general.
"Senator Cornyn and Cornyn allies have both simultaneously been boosting the exposure in a positive way of the senator and simultaneously attempting to tarnish the reputation of Attorney General Ken Paxton," Jones said.
The survey also shows O'Rourke leading Allred by 20 points in a hypothetical two-person Democratic primary contest. Paxton has threatened to have O'Rourke arrested on contempt charges related to his fundraising for Democratic state lawmakers who left Texas and broke quorum during the first special legislative session to block the passage of a new GOP-friendly congressional map.
Jones said that, if anything, such threats help O'Rourke with likely Democratic primary voters.
"In fact," Jones said, "all of Paxton's efforts are effectively indirect campaign contributions to Beto O'Rourke, because they burnish his credentials as a Democrat who's fighting hard for Democratic positions, Democratic values, and fighting against Donald Trump as well as Texas Republicans."
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Jones said O’Rourke will likely wait until after the end of the second special session, which began Friday, before deciding whether to enter the primary.
"One thing that's really interesting is that Democratic primary voters do have a preference between, say, Colin Allred and Beto O'Rourke, but virtually all of them say they would vote for Allred in a primary," Jones said. "In contrast, among Republicans, about a third of Republican voters say they would never vote for John Cornyn and another third say they would never vote for Ken Paxton."
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