Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, center right, speaks alongside, from left, daughter Danley Cornyn, wife Sandy Cornyn and daughter Haley Cornyn, during a primary runoff election night event after losing the Republican party’s nomination Tuesday, May 26, 2026, in Austin.
Ashley Landis/Associated Press
The military action in Iran is unpopular.
The cost of living hasn’t come down.
And nobody likes $4 a gallon gas.
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But Republicans in Texas proved once again that they aren’t ready to turn on President Donald Trump or his strongest allies like Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
Despite Sen John Cornyn and his supporters burning through $100 million to tear down Paxton in TV ads, it didn’t matter to Texas Republicans, who on Tuesday, sided with Trump’s one-time golf buddy and the man who challenged President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory when most other legal experts thought it was futile.
“He was also very loyal to your favorite President, ME,” Trump wrote on social media on Sunday in support of Paxton.
And it wasn’t just Paxton. Trump’s picks for Congress in other GOP primary runoffs all won on Tuesday, proving once again that Republican voters are trying to send GOP voices to Washington that better align with his vision for the country.
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“President Trump is the leader of our party,” Paxton declared in his victory speech. “And his endorsement is the most powerful force in politics.”
Cornyn ultimately may have lost his reelection three years ago, when he declared the Trump era in American politics over on a conference call with me and other reporters.
“I think President Trump’s time has passed him by,” Cornyn said in May 2023 as the presidential contest was heating up. “And I think what’s the most important thing for me is that we have a candidate who can actually win.”
And for good measure, he added: “I don’t think President Trump understands that when you run in a general election, you have to appeal to voters beyond your base.”
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Try as he might, Cornyn never was able to fully convince Trump to forget about that. When Trump endorsed Paxton last week, he wrote that Cornyn “was not supportive of me when times were tough.”
And then on Sunday, he took another shot at Cornyn, saying he “was VERY disloyal to me, as President…”
Cornyn isn’t the first, nor likely the last, Republican to try to get back into Trump’s good graces after crossing him. Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Elon Musk are living examples that it can be done.
Cornyn, at times uncomfortably, tried to turn himself MAGA. Trump may have used that to his advantage this last year. With a narrow majority in the Senate, Trump could not have afforded to endorse Paxton early on and risk Cornyn voting no on key issues with moderates like Susan Collins in Maine and anti-Trump Republicans like Thom Tills in North Carolina.
In other words, as much as Cornyn was trying to woo Trump, Trump was using his desperation to get his “Big Beautiful Bill,” judicial appointments and other key legislation passed.
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While it worked in the primary, with core GOP voters willing to look past the war and gas prices, the general election could be a much different situation. Proof of that is in the Texas Politics Project Poll at the University of Texas. In April, 77% of Republican respondents had a favorable view of Trump, despite the conflict in Iran and affordability issues. But when self-declared independents were asked, only 17% had a favorable view of the president.
If both issues don’t feel resolved by Labor Day, Democrat nominee for Senate James Talarico will have a case to make to moderate and independents who lean right, but don’t have the same passion to just “trust Trump,” as the President posted on Truth Social in bold letters on Tuesday as results in Texas began pouring in.
Talarico wasted zero time trying to start building political bridges to those types of Cornyn voters. Moments after Paxton was projected to be the winner, Talarico took to social media with a message he continued to repeat in interviews with reporters.
“To Senator Cornyn’s supporters: you have a place in our campaign,” Talarico wrote.
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