CPAC 2026: Texas Senate Crowd Boos Cornyn and Cheers Paxton as Trump Endorsement Becomes the Race's Defining Question

The Conservative Political Action Conference's 2026 gathering in Washington, D.C. was billed as a celebration of the Trump movement's grip on American conservatism. In many ways it was: the two-day event at the Gaylord National Resort drew thousands of activists who cheered the administration's immigration crackdown, its campaign against DEI programs, and its ongoing military operations against Iran. But running beneath the surface of the pep-rally atmosphere was a set of tensions — about the war, about electoral strategy, and above all about the Texas Senate Republican primary runoff on May 26 — that suggested the movement is entering a more contested phase of its own internal politics.

The CPAC crowd's reaction to the Texas Senate race was the most dramatic indicator of the shifting dynamics. When Attorney General Ken Paxton spoke at a conference dinner Friday evening, the reception was thunderous. Paxton, who was acquitted in a 2023 impeachment trial on corruption and bribery charges after Republican state senators declined to convict him, has spent the two years since becoming one of Trump's most aggressive state-level allies — suing the Biden administration, defending Trump's election claims, and filing legal challenges to Democratic governance initiatives across the country. He told the CPAC audience that Senator John Cornyn was 'a career politician with not one good accomplishment for Texas or for America' and vowed to be 'on the phone with Donald Trump every single day' if elected. When Cornyn's name was mentioned from the podium, the room responded with audible boos. Cornyn, who did not attend the conference, represents the established Senate wing of the Republican Party — senior, relationship-driven, effective at the nuts-and-bolts work of legislative deal-making.

The race has crystallized a genuine philosophical divide within MAGA politics: does loyalty to Trump mean performing his style and rhetoric, or does it mean delivering results through institutional channels? Cornyn's supporters argue he has voted with Trump on virtually every major piece of legislation and used his Senate seniority and relationships with centrist Democrats to push through administration priorities that a Paxton-style insurgent never could. Paxton's camp responds that voters want a fighter, not a dealmaker, and that ideological purity matters more than legislative horse-trading. The May 26 runoff will be the first major primary test of that argument in a Senate race this cycle.

The most discussed variable at CPAC was Trump's silence. He had not endorsed in the race at the time of the conference, and his absence from the intraparty fray was conspicuous. Texas attendees said they were waiting for his word before committing. Some noted that Trump maintains a decades-old working relationship with Cornyn, who helped shepherd judicial confirmations and other administration priorities during Trump's first term. Others said the CPAC crowd reaction was the clearest available signal of what the grassroots wanted — and that Trump would risk a fracture with his most loyal voters if he sided with the Washington establishment over a man his base views as a hero. Trump's own CPAC straw poll on 2028 GOP succession showed Vice President J.D. Vance leading Secretary of State Marco Rubio among attendees, suggesting the movement's immediate succession anxieties have already begun.

Beyond Texas, the conference was notable for the unease some delegates expressed about the Iran war. While official speakers celebrated the military campaign against Tehran as proof of American strength, hallway conversations told a different story. Some activists who had rallied behind Trump's 'America First' foreign policy — with its explicit promise to end endless wars — said privately they were struggling to explain to constituents why the US was now in a new one. The absence of a clear victory definition, combined with oil prices above $140 and 13 American service members dead, has created an ideological dissonance that the movement's public messaging has not yet found a way to fully paper over.