Cornyn, Paxton Statistically Tied In Texas Primary Dogfight: POLL

Republican Texas Sen. John Cornyn and Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton are neck and neck in the state’s bruising GOP Senate primary contest, according to recent polling.

Cornyn leads Paxton by one percentage point, 30% to 29%, with 37% of voters undecided in an Emerson College survey released Friday. The survey paints a starkly different picture of the race than the tranche of previous pollingshowing Paxton with a double digit lead over the longtime incumbent — and Cornyn’s lead in the new survey is well within the poll’s 4.4% margin of error.

“Seven months ahead of the Republican primary, the contest between the four-term incumbent and the Attorney General is a toss-up, with 37% of voters still undecided,” Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, said in a release announcing the survey.

The survey is the first public poll on the bitter primary fight since Cornyn’s backers began spending millions on positive advertising seeking to inform voters about the incumbent’s record.

Cornyn’s allies have also pledged to commit millions in additional resources to boost the candidate over the next several months. Texans for a Conservative Majority, a pro-Cornyn super PAC, spent more than $3 million in advertising through the end of July, the Texas Tribune reported. Chris LaCivita, who co-chaired President Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, is serving