Republican rep. Wesley Hunt runs for the US Senate in Texas, Tart Senate Gop -Leadership and adds a new element to an already controversial primary campaign.
The two-part congressman in Houston said he is running because he does not believe that the Republican sitting Senator John Cornyn, who had a cool relationship with President Donald Trump, has shown that he can beat attorney-general Ken Paxton, which is going to be shaded by legal and personal issues.
“What I have seen in the polling in recent months is that people want an alternative, and I'm going to give it to them,” Hunt said in an interview with Associated Press on Sunday.
Republican leaders of the Senate have worryed aloud that questions Paxton pursued, who went into the race in April, would cost the party many millions more dollars to defend in a general election, despite the Republican Lean of Texas.
Nevertheless, Senate have republican leaders, including Senate majority leader John Thune van South Dakota and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, publicly reprimanded Hunt, who has weighed a senate campaign since April.
Hunt has tested the waters as a potential third way for the Republicans of Texas, because Cornyn and Paxton have had a controversial struggle for words in the media. Since spring, hunt and Groups that support him, they have spent $ 6.5 million on advertisements in Texas, according to the adimpact of advertising service.
However, groups that support Cornyn have spent more than $ 21 million on television advertisements this year, according to Adimpact, to promote the four–term senator and Attack Paxton.
In a memo in September, Thune and Scott said that Cornyn had limited his shortage with Paxton and that Hunt “continues to stick to the false story that he pushed as a justification for his own ambitions.”
“There has never been a sustainable path for Hunt and will never be,” they said in the memo. “It is time for the Vanity project that Republicans could cost control of the Senate and dilute our resources to end.”
Hunt argued that they are Senate Republicans that waste on Cornyn agents that can be used in other states to retain and perhaps expand the majority.
“This is not a vanity project. This is about giving the people of Texas a viable alternative,” Hunt told the AP. “Let's put the exercise in meaninglessness and get the right person for the job.”
Hunt, graduated from the army veteran and the American military academy, represents a district in Houston in Houston that he and his supporters claim that both sides of the Republican gap are. In the north there are cities such as Tomball Heavy Trump Country, while for the south, exclusive communities such as River Oaks are the home of older, traditionally monitored Republicans in the spirit of their one -off neighbor the deceased President George HW Bush.
Although Paxton has been a strong proponent of Trump, Hunt held close to the track of the Republican president. He was the first Republican to endors him after the announcement of the Comeback campaign of the former President 2022, and he gave a prime-time speech about the opening evening of the Republican National Convention of 2024 in Milwaukee. He also campaigned 17 times last year for Trump, more than any other Republican surrogate.
Paxton is overshadowed by problems, including state and federal corruption studies and a trial period of 2023 that has exposed an illegitimate affair. Although an indictment against the state fraud and the federal corruption probe was dropped this year and the accusation ended in acquittal, Paxton's wife announced Senator Angela Paxton, in July that she signed up a divorce “on biblical grounds”.
Paxton assistants have said that the questions about him did not cost him politically.
Cornyn Aids and Senate Republican Leadership have said that the advertising campaign has cut in favor of Paxton.
It is unclear how Hunt In Binnringt would take into account the efforts of the Republicans to keep their majority of the Senate in next year's midterms.
Democrats should provide four seats to win the majority of the Senate, and they have recruited big names in North Carolina and Ohio, where Republicans defend seats. Another, Democratic Gov. Janet Mills van Maine, has taken steps to walk for the Republican seat of that state and is expected to announce her plans in this month.
Even if those states fall the way of democrats, Texas has proved difficult for the party.
Democrats were hopeful in 2018 when the then Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke closely lost to the Republican Senator Ted Cruz. In 2024, Cruz then defeated Rep. Colin Allred by a wider margin but fewer than 10 percentage points.
Allred announced in July that he ran again. Texas State Rep. James Talarico announced last month that he was running.
Trump wore Texas with 14 percentage points in 2024. Trump has remained neutral in the primary senate of Texas.
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Beaumont reported Van des Moines, Iowa.
