Former President George W. Bush and Senator John Cornyn, two top Texas Republicans, are rallying conservative donors behind the party’s Senate candidates — except for the one running in their own state, Ken Paxton.
Mr. Cornyn is hosting a fund-raiser on Monday evening in Dallas for six Republican nominees in battleground states, according to an invitation to the event that was obtained by The New York Times. Mr. Bush, listed on the invite as a “special guest,” is attending the event, his spokesman confirmed.
The event will benefit Maintain the Majority, a new joint fund-raising committee supporting the Senate candidates, who are defending Republican-held seats in Maine, Ohio, Alaska and Iowa and looking to flip seats in Michigan and New Hampshire. An email sent to attendees on Sunday and viewed by The Times also said that Michele Tafoya, the Republican nominee for Senate in Minnesota, was a late addition to the event.
But Mr. Paxton, the Republican nominee in Texas, who defeated Mr. Cornyn in a costly and bitter primary, was not included. His campaign declined to comment on the fund-raiser.
The fund-raising omission of Mr. Paxton is another escalation in the standoff between old-guard Bush Republicans and the fiery insurgent wing represented by the party’s Senate nominee, Mr. Paxton, President Trump and their allies.
And it comes as the parties battle for cash and advertising time in the Texas Senate race, one of this year’s top contests. Mr. Paxton has badly trailed his Democratic opponent, James Talarico, in campaign fund-raising, but super PACs tied to Mr. Trump and Senate Republicans have come to Mr. Paxton’s aid, reserving more than $80 million in outside advertising in Texas.
Mr. Paxton, the state attorney general, has long been a polarizing figure among Texas Republicans. He was impeached by the Republican-dominated Texas House on corruption charges in 2023, though he was acquitted in the State Senate, and he pushed to oust Republican lawmakers and judges who disagreed with him in his party’s primaries in 2024.
This year, Mr. Cornyn and establishment Republican donors spent more than $130 million on advertising backing the senator and bashing Mr. Paxton in their contentious primary. (Mr. Bush chipped in $5,000 for Mr. Cornyn.) In the months since, Mr. Cornyn has continually criticized Mr. Paxton’s character and campaign.
“Paxton’s a poor campaigner,” Mr. Cornyn told The Texas Tribune in August. “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.” (Mr. Paxton countered the attacks, saying on Fox News’s “The Sunday Briefing” that “John Cornyn doesn’t know my schedule. He doesn’t know how many hours I’m putting in every day, 18 hours a day.” )
The fund-raiser comes as long-simmering tensions between Bush- and Trump-era Texas factions burst to the surface.
Last week, Karl Rove, Mr. Bush’s former senior adviser, announced that he would not vote for Bo French, the Republican nominee for the Texas state agency that regulates oil and gas, because of a racist social media post by Mr. French. Mr. Paxton declined to condemn Mr. French’s post, and Mr. Trump posted on Truth Social that Mr. Rove was a “stone-cold loser.”
Mr. Paxton has attacked Mr. Rove in the past, including in an interview with the conservative pundit Tucker Carlson in 2023.
Mr. Paxton has also gone head-to-head with a scion of the Bush dynasty, soundly defeating Mr. Bush’s nephew, George P. Bush, in the 2022 Republican primary for Texas attorney general. And Mr. Paxton has long criticized Mr. Cornyn for his willingness to work with Democrats on bipartisan legislation.
The host committee of the Monday fund-raiser includes paragons of the Bush-era Republican Party like Harriet Miers, Mr. Bush’s onetime nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court; former Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison; and the Republican megadonor Harlan Crow.
One of the candidates the event seeks to support is John E. Sununu, the Republican nominee for Senate in New Hampshire. His father, also named John Sununu, served as the White House chief of staff for Mr. Bush’s father, George H.W. Bush. Contributions ranging between $1,000 and $61,500 are required for entry, according to the invitation.
Some of the donors invited to the event on Monday have also contributed to Mr. Paxton’s campaign.
The gathering and the new fund-raising committee will benefit Senators Susan Collins of Maine, Jon Husted of Ohio and Dan Sullivan of Alaska, who are defending their seats in competitive general-election races, as well as three other Senate candidates: Mr. Sununu, Representative Ashley Hinson of Iowa and former Representative Mike Rogers of Michigan.
Two Republican Senate nominees in states that Mr. Trump won in 2024, Michael Whatley of North Carolina and Mike Collins of Georgia, are also not part of the fund-raising effort. Democrats have shown strength in polls in those states.
Ms. Collins “appreciates the support of Senator Cornyn and President Bush,” said Blake Kernen, a spokeswoman for Ms. Collins’s campaign. Representatives for the other candidates did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
