Wesley Hunt’s campaign says it is getting more attention from the better-known front-runners in Texas’ GOP U.S. Senate primary because he is becoming harder to dismiss in the final days before the vote.
Hunt, a two-term Republican congressman from Houston’s northwest suburbs, has been a late addition to a primary that initially centered on a head-to-head contest between Sen. John Cornyn and state Attorney General Ken Paxton. As the race entered its final stretch, Cornyn and Paxton stepped up spending on ads attacking Hunt, a move Hunt interpreted as confirmation that the other two candidates see him as complicating their paths to the nomination.
Speaking at a recent event at Dallas GOP headquarters, Hunt said, “As an Apache helicopter pilot, it means I must be right over the target zone,” describing what he told the audience about how he was being targeted. After that Dallas event, Hunt also told reporters, “I was told this was going to be a vanity project and that I didn’t have a chance,” adding, “If that were the case, then why are they spending all this money attacking me?”
The primary’s vote threshold raises the stakes of the closing advertising push. If no candidate receives at least 50% of the vote Tuesday, the nomination will go to a May 26 runoff between the top two finishers, putting Hunt in a position where surging late could force Cornyn and Paxton into a two-way decision.
Wayne Hamilton, a Republican strategist unaffiliated with any Senate candidate and an adviser to Gov. Greg Abbott, said the pattern of attacks suggests different strategic calculations by the front-runners. Hamilton said he thought Paxton believes he can get to 50% and that Hunt’s polling was close enough to worry Paxton, while Cornyn may also be reacting to Hunt “ticking up too close.”
Hunt has positioned himself as more than a third candidate who would only prolong the fight between Cornyn and Paxton. He has said he is not just a spoiler and argued that he can win the nomination outright, even as his rivals’ intensified advertising reflects concerns he could prevent either of the other two men from clearing the 50% threshold.
Cornyn’s campaign and allied super PACs have aired ads criticizing Hunt, including an ad that noted Hunt voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary. Hunt said he voted for Clinton as part of a conservative-led effort to complicate the prolonged 2008 Democratic nominating campaign that ended with Barack Obama’s nomination for president.
But according to AdImpact, Hunt was not the dominant target of Cornyn’s overall TV advertising. AdImpact reported that of more than $63 million Cornyn and allied groups spent on TV, most of the attacks were aimed at Paxton. In that same accounting, a super PAC supporting Paxton also began airing ads critiquing Hunt this month, including criticism of Hunt’s absences from the House while he has campaigned across Texas as the least-known of the three candidates.
AdImpact data cited by AP put the total paid for by various groups attacking Hunt at at least $8.3 million. That figure included $2.3 million in ads that began on or after early voting began on Feb. 16, with almost $7 million spent by Cornyn’s campaign or allied groups and nearly $1.4 million coming from a group backing Paxton, Lonestar Liberty PAC.
Republican voters at Hunt’s Dallas appearance reflected both the desire for change and the ongoing alignment with former President Donald Trump. Bob Burns, 74, a retired manufacturing executive from Dallas, said he would vote for Hunt because he is “new” and that Hunt could “carry on Trump’s good work,” and he said he supports a two-term limit for U.S. senators. Another strategist, Tyler Norris, said Hunt’s entry was the biggest change in the contest and argued that Hunt’s major contribution so far has been to set up a runoff that would allow Paxton and Cornyn to spend tens of millions more attacking each other.