Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) is “not too worried” about a possible primary challenge from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, he told a local news anchor Friday night.
“I’m not too worried about it. In my last election, I had a primary. I had multiple opponents in the primary and got 76% of the vote,” Cornyn said, responding to the anchor’s question about the primary challenge. “And then I realize I’m not going to get 100% of the votes. And contested primaries actually make you a better candidate in the general election, in my experience.”
The Texas anchor followed up with Cornyn, asking, “Do you have a working relationship with the attorney general?” while also noting that Cornyn and Paxton enjoy “training” on social platform X.
“Well, there are a lot of things we agree on. And, you know, having held this position for four years as the state’s chief law enforcement officer, I have strong feelings about how this job should be done. But now my work is different. And it’s to represent all of us here in Texas and work with all of our elected officials, including the attorney general,” Cornyn responded.
Paxton said Cornyn “has been in Washington a long time” and “has never had any real competition,” during an interview with Tucker Carlson in September 2023.
“He worked for what, 14 years or more? And I can’t think of anything he’s accomplished for our state or even the country, much less the fact that we had a massive invasion in our state,” Paxton said.
Cornyn recently took aim at Paxton after the Texas attorney general criticized the senator’s leadership prospects amid his bid as a possible successor to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
“It’s hard to break out of prison, Ken,” Cornyn wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
Cornyn and Paxton trolled online, taking shots at each other on social media.
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