{"id":37076,"date":"2025-03-26T21:01:05","date_gmt":"2025-03-26T21:01:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/26\/facing-possible-primary-challenge-from-trump-ally-long-serving-senator-gets-backing-of-leader-thune\/"},"modified":"2025-03-26T21:01:05","modified_gmt":"2025-03-26T21:01:05","slug":"facing-possible-primary-challenge-from-trump-ally-long-serving-senator-gets-backing-of-leader-thune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/26\/facing-possible-primary-challenge-from-trump-ally-long-serving-senator-gets-backing-of-leader-thune\/","title":{"rendered":"Facing possible primary challenge from Trump ally, long-serving senator gets backing of leader Thune"},"content":{"rendered":"

As he gears up for what may potentially be his roughest re-election of his decades-long career, longtime GOP Sen. John Cornyn<\/a> of Texas landed the backing of the top Republican in the Senate.<\/p>\n

“I\u2019ve been honored to work alongside @JohnCornyn\u2014one of the most effective and respected conservative leaders in the country,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune<\/a> wrote in a social media post on Wednesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Thune, who topped Cornyn last year in the Senate GOP race to succeed longtime leader Mitch McConnell, emphasized that his one-time rival “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.”<\/p>\n

ONLY ON FOX NEWS: SENATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN CHAIR REVEALS HOW MANY SEATS HE’S AIMING FOR IN 2026<\/u><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

The Senate Majority Leader’s endorsement came a couple of hours after Cornyn \u2014 who previously served six years as the No. 2 Republican in the Senate \u2014 officially launched his 2026 re-election campaign, as he bids for a fifth six-year term representing Texas<\/a> on Capitol Hill.<\/p>\n

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The backing from Thune, which was widely expected, comes as the 73-year-old Cornyn faces a possible primary challenge from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton<\/a>. The conservative and MAGA firebrand who’s an ally of President Donald Trump has repeatedly for a couple of years flirted with taking on Cornyn.<\/p>\n

“I can\u2019t think of a single thing he\u2019s accomplished for our state or even for the country,” Paxton said in a September 2023 interview on the Fox News Channel. “Somebody needs to step up and run against this guy,” adding, “everything\u2019s on the table for me.”<\/p>\n

And in a Fox News Digital interview earlier this year, Paxton said that he’s “looking potentially at the U.S. Senate.”<\/p>\n

TOP POLITICAL HANDICAPPER REVEALS DEMOCRATS’ CHANCES OF WINNING BACK THE SENATE MAJORITY<\/u><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

While Paxton is very popular with the conservative base of the party, political strategists note that toppling Cornyn in a GOP primary would likely be a very expensive proposition, and it’s not clear if Paxton could raise the money needed for victory.<\/p>\n

Paxton has claimed Cornyn does not represent the conservative values of Texans and accused him of not being an ally of Trump.<\/p>\n

He has also regularly labeled Cornyn a “RINO,” a “Republican in name only” and an insult MAGA and “America First” Republicans have regularly used to criticize more mainstream or establishment members of the GOP.<\/p>\n

FORMER TRUMP AMBASSADOR EYES SENATE RETURN<\/u><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Cornyn, during the early stages of the 2024 Republican presidential nomination race, had said he would prefer that the GOP take a new direction, which angered Trump. But the senator endorsed Trump <\/a>in late January of last year, after the then-former president won both the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, the first two contests in the Republican White House calendar.<\/p>\n

Since Trump returned to the White House two months ago, Cornyn has been supportive of the president’s cabinet nominees and agenda.<\/p>\n

And in the senator’s campaign launch video, the announcer highlights that during Trump’s first term in office, “Texas Sen. John Cornyn had his back.”<\/p>\n

“Now I’m running for re-election and asking for your support so President Trump and I can pick up where we left off,” Cornyn says to camera in the video.<\/p>\n

Cornyn is a former state senator, former Texas Supreme Court justice, and former state attorney general, who first won election to the U.S. Senate in 2002.<\/p>\n

Fox News’ Peter Pinedo contributed to this report<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As he gears up for what may potentially be his roughest re-election of his decades-long career, longtime GOP Sen. John Cornyn of Texas landed the backing of the top Republican in the Senate. “I\u2019ve been honored to work alongside @JohnCornyn\u2014one of the most effective and respected conservative leaders in the country,” Senate Majority Leader John … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37076\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}