{"id":168197,"date":"2026-02-17T14:55:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T14:55:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/168197\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T14:55:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T14:55:15","slug":"texas-senator-struggles-in-gop-primary-as-democrats-eye-opening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/168197\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas Senator Struggles in GOP Primary as Democrats Eye Opening"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In more than two decades as a US Senator from Texas, John Cornyn has never faced a serious electoral threat. This year, he\u2019s struggling to make it past the Republican primary. <\/p>\n<p>As early voting begins Tuesday, most polls show Cornyn in a tight race with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a conservative firebrand whose personal life has been closely followed by the state\u2019s media outlets since he survived an impeachment trial in 2023. Another Republican, US Representative Wesley Hunt, is running third in the March 3 primary but with significant support. <\/p>\n<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1771340115_655_.jpeg\" data-size=\"embedded\"\/>  <\/p>\n<p>Wesley Hunt, from left, Ken Paxton, and John Cornyn<\/p>\n<p>Photographers: Andrew Harnik\/Getty Images, Mandel Ngan\/AFP\/Getty Images, Daniel Heuer\/Bloomberg<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is going to be a &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In more than two decades as a US Senator from Texas, John Cornyn has never faced a serious&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168198,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[68249,5353,43812,68250,21482,68248,27,29,28],"class_list":["post-168197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-background-checks","tag-campaign-finance","tag-divorce","tag-education-legislation","tag-election-results","tag-impeachment-of-official","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168197\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}