Texas Rep. Wesley Hunt (R) said in an interview published on Monday that he is running for Senate in the Lone Star State, joining an already contentious primary between incumbent Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and state Attorney General Ken Paxton (R).
Hunt told The Associated Press on Sunday he believes Texas voters want an alternative, based on polling he has seen.
“I’m going to give it to them,” Hunt told the news service.
Hunt has been openly flirting with the possibility of running for Senate for months, rolling out a number of statewide ads.
He has placed $1.2 million in ad spending and reservations this year, according to the ad-tracking company AdImpact.
Hunt also spoke to the White House earlier this year about a potential bid, and President Trump told reporters last week he remains undecided between Paxton and Cornyn.
Cornyn’s campaign responded to news of Hunt’s entrance into the primary, calling him “a legend in his own mind.”
“No one is happier this morning than the national Democrats who are watching Wesley continue his quixotic quest for relevancy, costing tens of millions of dollars that will endanger the Trump agenda from being passed,” said Matt Mackowiak, senior adviser for the Cornyn campaign, in a statement.
Trump has yet to endorse in the primary, but Senate Republican leadership, which is supporting Cornyn, urged Hunt not to launch a bid for the upper chamber.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) urged Hunt’s donors to call on him not to run in a memo first obtained by The Hill last month.
The committee referred to Hunt’s flirtation with a potential Senate bid in the Lone Star State as “a vanity project,” warning his entrance into the GOP primary for the seat could “dilute” the party’s resources and ultimately cost the party control of the upper chamber.
The memo cited six polls conducted in August to demonstrate Cornyn trailed Paxton by an average of 4 points, arguing the race between the two Republicans was “a statistical tie.”
“The deficit is gone, but Wesley Hunt continues to cling to the false narrative he pushed as a justification for his own ambitions,” the memo reads.
“The path forward is clear: Wesley Hunt must stop wasting donor resources on Senate posturing, run for reelection in his new district, and help President Trump win the five additional seats in Texas that are critical to maintaining the Republican majority in the U.S. House,” it continued.
Paxton has led Cornyn in most surveys, but recent polls show the incumbent senator closing the gap.
According to a Texas Public Opinion Research poll released earlier this month, Cornyn leads Paxton 26 percent to 32 percent among registered voters. Twenty-nine percent of registered voters said they were undecided.
A separate Texas Southern University poll published in August showed Paxton holding a 5-point lead over Cornyn among likely primary voters, 44 percent to 39 percent. Another 17 percent said they were undecided. The last Texas Southern University poll released in May showed Paxton with a 9-point lead over Cornyn.
Updated at 8:29 a.m. EDT