With the weight of the Lone Star State’s gun rights grassroots behind him, McNutt personally delivered a nearly 100-page open letter to the White House, urging President Donald J. Trump to refrain from endorsing the senior Texas senator in his 2026 re-election campaign.

“This is not about partisan games — it’s about principle,” said McNutt. “Texas gun owners remember who wrote the blueprint for Biden’s gun control agenda, and we won’t stand idly by while the architect asks for our vote.”

The Letter: A Thunderclap from the Grassroots

The letter delivered by Texas Gun Rights is not an endorsement of any candidate, but rather a sharp rebuke of Cornyn’s anti-gun record.

The campaign-style petition outlines Cornyn’s long-standing betrayals of gun rights, including:

• Sponsoring the “Fix NICS” Act in 2017, which expanded the federal background check system and wrongly flagged veterans and law-abiding citizens as “prohibited persons.”
• Co-authoring the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA) in 2022 — a sweeping federal gun control package praised by the Biden Administration as the most significant in 30 years.
• Funding and incentivizing Red Flag-style gun confiscation laws, while expanding background checks to include juvenile and mental health records.

And now, with President Trump consolidating support from gun owners after firing ATF Director Steve Dettelbach and rolling back anti-FFL policies, a Cornyn endorsement could risk derailing that progress.

“If President Trump wants to keep the trust he’s earned from gun owners in recent months, standing behind John Cornyn is not the way to do it,” McNutt warned.

The move comes amid a full-blown grassroots revolt against Cornyn inside the Texas GOP.

Cornyn’s own allies at the Senate Leadership Fund were rocked last month when their internal polling showed him down by 16 points in a head-to-head against Paxton — a stunning collapse for a four-term incumbent.

While Texas Gun Rights PAC — the affiliated political action committee — has already endorsed Attorney General Paxton for U.S. Senate, the letter delivered to Trump does not call for an endorsement, but simply urges the former president to remain neutral in the primary battle.

2026 Senate Landscape: An Earthquake in the Making

As the Republican field heats up, Democrats are watching with keen interest.

While O’Rourke brings strong name recognition and fundraising power, Texas remains a conservative stronghold — and gun rights remain a litmus test for any serious contender.

With Cornyn bleeding support from his base and grassroots gun owners uniting against him, the 2026 race is rapidly becoming a referendum on the future of the Republican Party in Texas — and the party’s commitment to the Second Amendment.

“This isn’t about personality or party loyalty,” McNutt emphasized. “It’s about whether we have a Senate that stands for the Constitution — or one that negotiates it away behind closed doors.”

The delivery of nearly 10,000 signatures to the White House sends a thunderous signal from Texas gun owners: they’re awake, they’re organized, and they’re not backing down.

If Cornyn’s allies thought this primary would be business as usual, they’ve misread the mood entirely. In Texas, gun rights aren’t just an issue — they’re a way of life.

And the grassroots? They’ve drawn the line in the sand.