Texas GOP Eyes Most Competitive US Senate Primary Since…1930

It has been 95 years since three Texas GOP U.S. Senate candidates received 20+ percent of the primary vote

The much-anticipated entrance of U.S. Representative Wesley Hunt in Texas’ high profile 2026 U.S. Senate race sets the GOP up for what will likely be the most competitive primary for the office in party history.

The March 3, 2026 Republican contest was already slated to be a barnburner with the party’s establishment generally backing four-term Senator John Cornyn against controversial state Attorney General Ken Paxton who is buoyed by support from the MAGA base.

All three candidates have polled north of 20 percent in most matchup surveys conducted since August with Rep. Hunt, who has the least name recognition, the odd man out to make the runoff.

Several other lesser-known candidates are also in the Republican race which has a primary filing deadline of less than two months away (December 8th).

Should Cornyn, Paxton, and Hunt all remain in the race, the 2026 Republican primary is poised to be the most competitive three-way race for the nomination since 1930.

Until the 1960s, the Texas Republican Party only sporadically held primaries to choose their U.S. Senate nominees. Nominees were selected via state convention for 13 cycles from 1916 through 1960 and in primaries just three times during that span (1930, 1934, 1954).

[Note: In 1948, nominee independent oil operator Jack Porter of Houston was named the nominee by the state Republican Executive Committee in mid-September following the withdrawal of convention-nominated Brownsville attorney Carlos Watson].

Republicans only held primaries when triggering a state law that required any party whose gubernatorial nominee eclipsed a certain voting threshold during the previous election cycle to do so (e.g. 100,000 votes in the 1930s, 200,000 in the 1950s).

In 1930, Republican voters had the chance to pick their first nominee for U.S. Senator in a three-way contest between realty broker Doran Haesly of Dallas, Port Arthur Chamber of Commerce general manager Colonel Harve Haines, and attorney C.O. Harris of San Angelo.

Haesly won the primary with a plurality 39.4 percent with Harris 7.3 points back at 32.1 percent and Haines at 28.5 percent. A total of only 8,992 votes were cast for the Republican candidates statewide in that nominating contest.

A runoff election was not required at that point in time for the GOP, but was in three of the subsequent 23 Republican U.S. Senate primaries with plurality winners:

• 1964: Former Harris County Republican Party Chair and oil man George H.W. Bush defeated 1962 gubernatorial nominee Jack Cox of Houston with 62.1 percent in the runoff
• 1988: Two-term U.S. Representative Beau Bolter overcame his second place primary finish by winning 60.2 percent of the runoff against Houston investor Wes Gilbreath
• 2012: Former Texas Solicitor General Ted Cruz trailed Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst by double-digits in the primary but won the runoff with 56.2 percent

It should be noted that former Republican Midwestern University political science professor John Tower was the only Republican on a jungle primary ballot of 71 candidates in 1961’s special election following Lyndon Johnson becoming vice-president. He defeated appointed Democratic Senator Bill Blakely in the runoff.

Cornyn already owns the weakest primary victory by a Republican Texas U.S. Senator with the 59.4 percent he received in 2014’s eight-candidate field.

The March 2026 primary will be the 14th time a GOP U.S. Senator’s name has appeared on a primary ballot.

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