Texas Sen. John Cornyn launched his first major ad campaign of the 2026 election cycle today with a website attacking Attorney General Ken Paxton for approving $7.1 million in “left-wing grants” and “fund[ing] woke with your tax dollars.”
The two Republican candidates are headed for a heated and expensive showdown to cater to the party’s most extreme members and demonstrate their allegiance to President Donald Trump ahead of their party primary next spring.
Cornyn, who is seeking a fifth term representing Texas in the U.S. Senate, has emphasized in campaign materials his record for supporting Trump priorities and his senior position among Senate Republicans.
Paxton, who is entering his tenth year as the attorney general, was Trump’s Texas campaign manager in 2016, 2020 and 2024, and sued four swing states in 2020 to try to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in that race. He announced his candidacy in April.
The website
Cornyn’s new website, CrookedKen.com, blasts Paxton for grants that the state Office of the Attorney General disbursed under his leadership over the past decade to organizations that offer legal help for immigrants and victims of sexual violence.
“Ken Paxton talks tough on the border — but behind the scenes, he was cutting checks to some of the most radical organizations in Texas,” the campaign asserted, accompanied by a video.
The organizations that have received grants in the past decade include the following (emphasis is taken from the website):
- $2,281,633 for Legal Aid of Northwest Texas, which “offers legal support to non-citizens, undocumented immigrants, and asylum applicants.”
- $2,135,753 for Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, which “represents illegal immigrants in deportation and asylum cases.”
- $744,604 for the Montrose Center, which “offers gender-affirming care programs for children as young as seven.”
- $415,874 for the Texas Civil Rights Project, which “supports policies that weaken border enforcement and advocates to eliminate barriers to migration” and “runs the ‘Beyond Borders’ campaign opposing federal immigration laws.”
- $252,539 for American Gateways, which “provides legal aid to illegal immigrants, works in detention centers, and instructs people on how to avoid [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] compliance.”
- $251,318 for the Tahirih Justice Center, which “advocates for immigration policies that separate police from ICE and weaken federal-local cooperation.”
- $15,000 for Grassroots Leadership, which “runs the ‘ICE Out of Austin’ campaign, opposes deportation, and called for the end of Gov. Abbott’s Operation Lone Star” and which “publicly mobilized volunteers against the Trump administration.”
“Paxton said he was fighting the Left. Instead, he funded it,” the website states, contrasting the grants with Paxton’s aggressive investigation of groups dedicated to helping and protecting migrants.
In 2022, Paxton investigated the Tahirih Justice Center and American Gateways to determine whether they used Texas Bar Foundation Fund money to “support the border invasion” by “aiding and abetting the invasion of illegal aliens.”
The bottom of the page links to an itemized list of “The Receipts” for those grants, which includes grants to other organizations not listed on the main page. For example, that list includes a single $50 grant to Earth Day Texas Inc. in 2019 for registration fees and employee training.
How the grants are used
Several of the grants highlighted on the site are earmarked for specific purposes. In the 2025 fiscal year, the attorney general’s office awarded just one dollar shy of $150,000 to Texas RioGrande Legal Aid for statewide direct victim services and outreach and education.
That and other grants were classified as Other Victim Assistant Grants, which the attorney general’s office awards for any of the following purposes:
- “Providing direct victim services including, but not limited to, counseling, crisis intervention, assistance with Crime Victims’ Compensation, legal assistance, victim advocacy, and information and referral;
- “Providing outreach or community education to help identify crime victims who might not otherwise be reached and provide or refer them to needed services;
- “Connecting crime victims to services for the purpose of supporting or assisting in their recovery;
- “Training professionals and volunteers to improve their ability to inform victims of their rights, to assist victims in their recovery, or to establish a continuum of care for victims; or
- “Other support for victim-related services or assistance as determined by the OAG.”
The office of the attorney general did not respond to an afternoon request for comment about the annual size of its grant program.
The race
Cornyn’s website debut comes on the heels of multiple polls that show him at a strong disadvantage among Republican voters compared to Paxton. The incumbent paid for the site from his main campaign fundraising committee, Texans for Senator John Cornyn, Inc., which raised $1.5 million in the first three months of the year.
The website also includes sections assailing Paxton for his alleged extramarital affair that was part of his impeachment trial last session, and for the political ties of the legal team he hired to defend him in that trial.
A final placeholder section signals Cornyn’s energy for the campaign ahead: “More to Come.”
