{"id":7695,"date":"2025-03-26T15:46:05","date_gmt":"2025-03-26T15:46:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/thune-endorses-cornyn-ahead-of-what-could-be-a-thorny-primary\/"},"modified":"2025-03-26T15:46:05","modified_gmt":"2025-03-26T15:46:05","slug":"thune-endorses-cornyn-ahead-of-what-could-be-a-thorny-primary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/thune-endorses-cornyn-ahead-of-what-could-be-a-thorny-primary\/","title":{"rendered":"Thune endorses Cornyn ahead of what could be a thorny primary"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Sen. John Cornyn<\/a> (R-Texas) is gearing up for perhaps the most difficult election battle of his long career, securing an early endorsement from Senate Majority Leader John Thune<\/a> on Wednesday, his one-time opponent<\/a> in the fight for the chamber\u2019s top job.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been honored to work alongside @JohnCornyn\u2014one of the most effective and respected conservative leaders in the country,\u201d Thune wrote on X<\/a> hours after Cornyn officially launched his reelection campaign<\/a>. \u201cHe was tireless and instrumental in building our majority. We need to keep him in the Senate & in the fight to deliver on President Trump\u2019s agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Thune\u2019s endorsement is widely expected \u2014 it would be almost unheard of for a chamber leader to not back one of their members \u2014 Cornyn faces what could be a difficult primary challenge, with Texas Attorney General and MAGA firebrand Ken Paxton likely to throw his hat in the ring<\/a> as the candidate closer to President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people of Texas know John Cornyn,\u201d Paxton told Tucker Carlson in a February interview<\/a>. \u201cAnd I don\u2019t think he\u2019ll survive another primary.\u201d<\/p>\n

The two have been duking it out for years.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo me, he\u2019s been in Washington too long,\u201d Paxton told Carlson back in 2023<\/a>. \u201cHe\u2019s been there, what, for 14 years or so? And I can\u2019t think of a single thing he\u2019s accomplished for our state or even for the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

This, after Cornyn called Paxton\u2019s legal difficulties an “embarrassment\u201d \u2014 the attorney general was impeached by the GOP-controlled Texas House (but acquitted by the state Senate<\/a>), and has faced criminal investigations for years<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A Paxton run could challenge Cornyn\u2019s grip on the Senate seat he\u2019s held since winning it in 2002, with the state attorney general popular among the party\u2019s MAGA base<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) is gearing up for perhaps the most difficult election battle of his long career, securing an early endorsement from Senate Majority Leader John Thune on Wednesday, his one-time opponent in the fight for the chamber\u2019s top job. \u201cI\u2019ve been honored to work alongside @JohnCornyn\u2014one of the most effective and respected conservative […]<\/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-7695","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\/7695","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=7695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7695\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}