{"id":10016,"date":"2025-06-07T14:08:20","date_gmt":"2025-06-07T14:08:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/trump-movement-turns-on-cornyn-poll-finds\/"},"modified":"2025-06-07T14:08:20","modified_gmt":"2025-06-07T14:08:20","slug":"trump-movement-turns-on-cornyn-poll-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/trump-movement-turns-on-cornyn-poll-finds\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Trump movement’ turns on Cornyn, poll finds"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

MAGA loyalists have put Sen. John Cornyn’s reelection campaign in a Texas-size hole<\/a>. <\/p>\n

An early May poll commissioned by the American Opportunity Alliance<\/a>, a major conservative funding group linked to megadonor Paul Singer, shows the Texas Republican down 17 points in a head-to-head primary matchup with state attorney general Ken Paxton. <\/p>\n

Below the top-line of Paxton’s 52-percent-to-35-percent advantage, the poll found a clear divide<\/a> between those voters who were defined as \u201cTrump Movement\u201d voters and those who were \u201cTraditional Republicans.\u201d In the former category, which made up of 58 percent of the electorate, Paxton had a 45-point lead. Among the latter, who made up only 35 percent of voters, Cornyn had a 27-point lead.<\/p>\n

The findings reflect a increasingly prominent divide among Republican primary voters in Texas where an insurgent hard-right faction has been steadily gaining ground in recent years while ousting more traditional GOP elected officials. Paxton, who has faced federal investigation and impeachment, has long been a darling of right-wingers in Texas, while Cornyn \u2014 first elected to the Senate in 2002 \u2014 is considered a pillar of the establishment GOP.<\/p>\n

In a speculative three-way race with GOP Rep. Wesley Hunt, who is exploring a bid<\/a>, the margin barely narrowed with the Cornyn trailing Paxton, 43 percent to 27 percent, with Hunt receiving 14 percent.<\/p>\n

There was some good news for the incumbent in the poll. Despite trailing Paxton significantly, he is still viewed favorably by the Republican primary electorate in the Lone Star State \u2014 just not as favorably as the state attorney general.<\/p>\n

The poll, conducted from April 29 through May 1 among 800 Republican primary voters, is among a series of public and private surveys all showing Cornyn significantly trailing Paxton. They have sparked increasing concern from national Republican operatives about a potentially ugly and costly primary, as well as the possible elevation of a scandal-plagued candidate who might be at risk in a general election. <\/p>\n

The American Opportunity Alliance’s interest in the race is notable; it’s one of the key donor consortiums<\/a> in Republican politics and its members including Singer and Chuck Schwab are some of the biggest funders on the right.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MAGA loyalists have put Sen. John Cornyn’s reelection campaign in a Texas-size hole. An early May poll commissioned by the American Opportunity Alliance, a major conservative funding group linked to megadonor Paul Singer, shows the Texas Republican down 17 points in a head-to-head primary matchup with state attorney general Ken Paxton. Below the top-line of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10016\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}