From the inbox, from Thursday’s “Texas take with Jeremy Wallace” newsletter.
Still a crook any way you look
The more endangered U.S. Sen. John Cornyn looks in early polling against Ken Paxton in the GOP primary, the more Democrats are buzzing.
While a Democrat has not won a U.S. Senate seat since Houston’s Lloyd Bentsen in 1988, Democrats are convinced Paxton has the type of political baggage that could boost the chances of whoever wins a Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate.
Paxton, 62, was impeached by the GOP-led Texas House in 2023. Nearly two dozen articles of impeachment were filed against Paxton, who was accused of bribery tied to an alleged affair, among other claims of impropriety. The Texas Senate later acquitted Paxton, but the details aired in 2023 damaged Paxton’s standing even with Republican voters, according to public polling.
But as I reported yesterday, internal polls from both Republicans and Democrats show Paxton, the state’s attorney general, has a big lead on Cornyn going into the summer. Cornyn told the Huffington Post on Thursday that the race is 10 months out, and he has more than “enough time and more than enough resources to make that up.
Toss in the fact that 2026 is a midterm election when the sitting president’s party typically loses seats in Congress, and you can see why Democrats like Beto O’Rourke have called Paxton a gift to Democrats if he wins the nomination. At a rally last week in Denton, O’Rourke was asked if he would consider running.
“I’m gonna infer from your question that you do not want Ken Paxton to be your next senator,” he told the audience member who asked the question. “If … this is what the people of Texas want — that it’s the highest and best use of what I can give you — then yes, I will.”
Here’s my early list of Democrats who may want to jump in and why (listed alphabetically):
COLIN ALLRED: The Dallas Democrat, who just turned 42, lost to U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz in 2024 by 8 percentage points but raised $92 million doing so. Allred said he is seriously considering running again.
JOAQUIN CASTRO: The 50-year-old San Antonio attorney is in his 7th term in Congress. He’s been traveling the state over the last few weeks with events in Houston and the Rio Grande Valley.
ROLAND GUTIERREZ: The San Antonio State Senator ran against Allred in the 2024 Democratic primary. While the 54-year-old lost that race, his passion for gun control in the aftermath of the Uvalde school shooting made him a favorite of Democrats who wanted a more fiery candidate in the general election. Gutierrez told me he’s focused on the Texas Senate right now but added, “whatever decision I make about my future, my number one concern is working to make life better for the working families of Texas.”
NATHAN JOHNSON: The 57-year-old state Senator from Dallas knows how to win a tough race. He defeated state Sen. Don Huffines, a wealthy self-funding Republican, in 2018 to win the state Senate seat. The Dallas Morning News reported he was considering the race.
BETO O’ROURKE: The El Paso Democrat, now 52, lost his race for governor in 2022 and came within 3 percentage points of beating U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz in 2018. While he lost both races, he’s proven to be a prolific fundraiser who can drive out Democratic voters in midterm cycles.
TERRY VERTS: The 57-year-old Houston resident is a retired astronaut and Air Force colonel who is good friends with U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz. Verts has been calling around for potential campaign staffers. While he doesn’t have name identification among Democrats, if he gets in the race, he can present himself as a political outsider much like Kelly did when he won his seat in 2020. Already, he’s using his social media to push back against key players in the Trump administration like Elon Musk and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
We knew about Colin Allred, we knew about Terry Virts, and we knew about Beto. Roland Gutierrez lost to Allred in the 2024 primary for Senate. Joaquin Castro – like his brother – has been on the “potential candidate” list for statewide office since at least 2018. Nathan Johnson is new to the list, but he makes as much sense as anyone else. He has an advantage over both Gutierrez and Castro in that he wouldn’t have to give up his current office to run for US Senate, as he was on the ballot in 2024.
Obviously, not all of them will actually run. One or more might try for a different office – someone needs to run for Governor, Lite Guv, AG, and so on. The combination of 2026 likely being a good year for Dems and four seats being needed to win back the majority should make fundraising easy enough. I’m not going to express any preferences now, not when everyone is in “I’m exploring” mode, but I will say that the best thing they could all do is be all in on candidate recruitment and support for every other office on the ballot next year. Get a strong slate of Congressional and Legislative candidates, in every even remotely swingy district, and then do the same for the reach districts. Get every Dem incumbent in every safe district to get off their asses and campaign like they have a real race. It worked pretty well in 2018, and we’re going to need all the help we can get. The Chron story about the bad Cornyn polls and the various Dem wannabes is here.