AUSTIN — Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said Sunday he does not know whether outgoing U.S. Sen. John Cornyn will support his bid to keep the Senate seat in Republican hands in the Nov. 3 election.
“I’d love to have John’s support. You’d have to ask him,” Paxton said during an appearance on Fox News’ The Big Weekend Show. “That’s totally up to him as to what he wants to do.”
Cornyn, who has represented Texas in the U.S. Senate since 2002, has not indicated whether he will endorse Paxton after the two Republicans faced each other in a contentious primary.
Paxton defeated Cornyn by more than 27 percentage points in the Republican runoff in May, ending Cornyn’s 24-year Senate career.
Cornyn has since criticized Paxton’s campaign and fundraising efforts.
“Paxton’s a poor campaigner,” Cornyn told The Texas Tribune last month. “He’s lazy and doesn’t raise money. And he basically is not offering a very compelling case for his election. He’s making this harder than it needs to be. But so be it—we are where we are.”
Paxton now faces Democratic nominee James Talarico, a state representative from Austin, in the general election.
Talarico won the Democratic nomination in March after defeating U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Dallas in the primary. Crockett said last month that she does not plan to campaign for Talarico before November and instead will focus on down-ballot races across Texas.
“When we’re looking at a state like Texas, we’ve tried this, where we’ve got one amazing candidate that’s running at the top of the ticket,” Crockett told CNN. She said she wants to help raise the profiles of candidates in other races.
The winner will replace Cornyn and serve alongside Republican Sen. Ted Cruz. Talarico is seeking to become the first Democrat to represent Texas in the U.S. Senate since Bob Krueger left office in 1993.