Former US President George W. Bush joined a fundraising event hosted by Republican Texas Senator John Cornyn in Dallas on Monday evening, 21 September 2026, to support a group of Republican candidates in key Senate races, without including the party’s Texas candidate, Ken Paxton, among the event’s beneficiaries.
Bush was listed as a ‘special guest’ on the fundraising invitation, while a spokesman confirmed that he would attend the gathering. The event sought to rally conservative donors behind candidates defending Republican-held seats or seeking to take seats from Democrats in the midterm elections scheduled for November 2026. The fundraising effort was allocated to a new joint fundraising committee called ‘Keeping the Majority’.
Beneficiaries of the Bush-Cornyn fundraising campaign
The beneficiaries include Senator Susan Collins of Maine, Senator Jon Husted of Ohio and Senator Dan Sullivan of Alaska, all of whom are running competitive races to defend Republican-held seats. The committee is also supporting John E. Sununu, the Republican candidate in New Hampshire; Representative Ashley Hinson, the candidate in Iowa; and former Representative Mike Rogers, the candidate in Michigan.
A message sent to invitees on the eve of the event said that Michelle Tavaiya, the party’s Senate candidate in Minnesota, had been added to the gathering at the last minute. The invitation sought contributions ranging from $1,000 to $61,500 in exchange for attending the event and participating at different levels of support.
The host committee included figures associated with Bush’s period in the Republican Party, including Harriet Miers, whom Bush previously nominated to the Supreme Court; former Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison; and Republican donor Harlan Crow. Sununu was among the candidates whose participation reflected the campaign’s ties to the party’s traditional wing. His father, who shares his name, served as chief of staff to former President George H.W. Bush.
Ken Paxton excluded from Dallas fundraising campaign
The campaign did not include Ken Paxton, Texas attorney general and the party’s Senate candidate for the state, after he defeated Cornyn in a costly and fiercely contested primary. Paxton’s campaign team declined to comment on his exclusion from the Dallas fundraiser.
Paxton is facing Democrat James Talarico in a race that has become one of the leading Senate contests of the 2026 elections. The Republican candidate lagged behind his opponent in fundraising before political committees linked to President Donald Trump and the Senate Republican leadership intervened with advertising support.
According to data from advertising-spending tracking firm AdImpact, Republican groups spent or reserved more than $80 million in advertising in Texas from the time Paxton secured the party’s nomination until the end of September. The supporting organisations included a committee linked to Senate Republicans, along with pro-Trump political committees. Paxton’s exclusion reflects continuing tensions between Republican figures associated with the Bush era and the Trump-backed wing.
Accumulated divisions between the Republican Party’s two wings
Paxton previously defeated George P. Bush, the former president’s nephew, in the 2022 Republican primary for Texas attorney general. He also criticised Cornyn for working with Democrats to pass legislation supported by both parties.
The dispute within the Texas party intensified days before the Dallas fundraiser, after Karl Rove, a former Bush adviser, announced that he would not vote for Bo French, the Republican candidate for the state body regulating the oil and gas sector, over a post that Rove said carried racist content. Paxton did not join French’s critics, while Trump attacked Rove on his social media platform, describing him as ‘a total loser’.
Paxton had previously criticised Rove during an interview in 2023, extending the confrontation between the political network associated with the Bush family and the populist wing of the party. The lack of support was not limited to Paxton: the fundraising committee also did not include two other Republican candidates in races where Democrats are leading, Michael Whatley in North Carolina and Mike Collins in Georgia.
Republican resources spread across competitive races
A spokeswoman for Collins’s campaign said the candidate appreciated Cornyn and Bush’s support, as Republicans continued to distribute their resources across a growing number of competitive races. Bush’s move came about two weeks after he was absent from the Republican Party’s midterm election conference in Dallas, which centred on Trump’s agenda and was attended by Paxton.
His participation in Cornyn’s fundraiser highlights a parallel course within the party focused on supporting traditional candidates in states whose results could determine control of the Senate.
