Activist and investigative journalist Laura Loomer highlighted federal campaign finance records showing former George W. Bush adviser Karl Rove gave money to two committees tied to Sen. John Cornyn’s re-election effort, less than three months before the May 26 Republican runoff in Texas.
Loomer, in an exclusive post on X on Thursday, pointed to screenshots of FEC records showing a donor listed as “ROVE, MR. KARL” giving $7,000 to the Cornyn Lonestar Victory Fund and $3,500 to Texans for Senator John Cornyn Inc., both with a receipt date of March 3, 2026, and both listed in Texas.
Loomer wrote, “Rove loves funding candidates whose main goal is to ‘Derail Trump.’”
She also remarked, “Clearly, John Cornyn has no issue taking money from Trump haters… because deep down, Cornyn himself is, and always has been a total Trump hater.
This is disqualifying for anyone who is seeking out a Trump endorsement!! ”
The screenshots included with Loomer’s post show more than just the donation records. An image included in the screenshots is a Wall Street Journal opinion piece by Karl Rove headlined Is Trump Trying to Lose the Midterms? The subheading of the piece reads: “He spent much of his first year back in office undermining his political interests.”
Another screenshot added to Loomer’s post is an invitation for a Nikki Haley event in San Antonio, Texas, that includes Karen Rove on the host committee. Loomer said the image reflected what she “exposed” during the 2024 Republican primary, when “Karl Rove’s wife co-hosted fundraisers for Haley in Texas.”
An additional screenshot featured in Loomer’s post shows a Truth Social post from President Donald Trump dated May 4, 2025. In the post, Trump wrote, “I don’t need Karl Rove telling me what to do,” and added that Rove is “a Loser who’s been wrong about almost everything.”
The post built on Trump’s years-long opposition to Rove. In 2015, Trump said, “Karl Rove spent $430 million dollars on various campaigns last cycle. Didn’t win one.” In 2023, Trump told a CPAC audience, “We are never going back to the party of Paul Ryan, Karl Rove and Jeb Bush.”
Rove’s backing of Cornyn comes in the middle of an increasingly expensive and closely contested Senate primary fight. Cornyn and his allies have spent roughly $69 million to $71 million in the primary, with some estimates rising higher depending on how spending is counted, while Paxton’s side spent about $4 million. Cornyn finished only narrowly ahead of Paxton in the March 3 primary, around 42 percent to 41 percent, forcing the two Republicans into a May 26 runoff, while Rep. Wesley Hunt finished third with about 14 percent of the vote, leaving a substantial bloc of voters in play.
Paxton has, since at least 2023, portrayed Cornyn as a product of the Republican establishment aligned with Karl Rove and the Bush political network. In an interview with Tucker Carlson, Paxton sharply criticized both Rove and Cornyn after his acquittal on impeachment charges. Paxton said Rove’s PACs “have gone after conservatives for a long time” and added, “I don’t view him as an ally of Republicans.”
Turning to Cornyn, Paxton said the senator had been “basically vacant” on border issues and contended, “He’s been in Washington too long.” Paxton added, “I can’t think of a single thing he’s accomplished for our state or even for the country,” before arguing that Cornyn “does what they ask him to do” and “is a puppet of the Bush and Karl Rove team.” Paxton concluded by saying, “I think it’s time somebody needs to step up and run against this guy.”
On March 13, Ken Paxton launched a digital ad built around John Cornyn’s past comments about President Donald Trump. The ad featured Cornyn saying, “I think President Trump’s time has passed him by,” and after January 6 stating, “President Trump fed that fantasy by repeatedly claiming the election was stolen” and “The president’s actions were reckless.”
The ad also resurfaced Cornyn defending the Russia investigation. Cornyn said, “It is our responsibility to get to the bottom of what exactly happened due to Russian involvement in our elections,” and later called it “a legitimate area of inquiry.”
In early March, Paxton accused Cornyn of offering “lip service” to MAGA while backing figures hostile to Trump, including Jack Smith, James Comey, Robert Mueller, and Monaco. “Everything that John Cornyn did was designed to make sure that Donald Trump did not get reelected,” Paxton said. He added, “This is the way John Cornyn works. He works behind the scenes usually.”
Around the same time, comments by Rep. Jasmine Crockett, who later lost the Democratic primary for John Cornyn’s Senate seat, resurfaced in which she said Cornyn was “a real Republican” pretending to be MAGA. “What we have is a Senator who actually is a real Republican who’s doing everything that he can to make it seem like he’s a MAGA Republican so that he can get through his primary,”Crockett said.
Another issue raised in the race involved John Cornyn’s votes to confirm Biden judicial nominees. The judges Cornyn voted to confirm later issued rulings affecting Trump administration priorities on immigration, detention policy, tariffs, and Texas’s Operation Lone Star barriers. The judges included those who ruled against expanded immigration detention policies, ordered the release of detained migrants, blocked Trump’s tariffs, and ordered Texas to remove floating barriers placed in the Rio Grande as part of Operation Lone Star.
Cornyn also came under scrutiny for touting support from pastors tied to the Evangelical Immigration Table, which backed “a path toward legal status and/or citizenship” for illegal aliens. Cornyn defended the pastors, saying, “Texas respects its pastors.”