MAGA attack dogs are licking their chops at the prospect of taking down Texas’ senior U.S. Senator, John Cornyn. Cornyn may look to be in good physical health and vigorous enough, but his political prognosis is likely fatal. He is caught in MAGA crosshairs, and it is unlikely that he will remove himself from the line of fire between now and the Texas Republican Primary next spring.
Cornyn is seen as a RINO who won’t embrace the authoritarian, burn-it-all down, xenophobia that dominates the Texas Republican Party. MAGA doesn’t necessarily demand that every Republican be an extremist OG like Dan Patrick, but if you’re late, you better embrace the hate.
Greg Abbott proved the point. Abbott kept up the appearance of temperance for a while but once he drank the Kool-Aid, he quickly won over MAGA wack jobs by making cruelty Texas policy – like imposing forced birth on pre-teen rape victims and ramming private school vouchers down Texans’ throats.
And MAGA knows John Cornyn doesn’t have a viable base within the Texas Republican Party anymore. Republicans still wearing his establishment brand have been culled from the herd, either through primary losses or retirements.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has been sizing up Cornyn for years. Despite Paxton’s corruption having been exposed by whistleblowers within his own office and an open FBI probe into criminal bribery, Paxton will be the favorite if, as many expect, he challenges Cornyn for his Senate seat. Even if Paxton decides against the race, Cornyn is vulnerable to any number of other Republicans with real MAGA bona fides.
The best comparison to Cornyn’s dilemma is former Lt. Governor David Dewhurst, who tried to win a Texas U.S. Senate seat in 2012 when MAGA was known as the Tea Party. Many thought that Dewhurst’s loss was just bad timing, and winner Ted Cruz caught a Tea Party wave that wouldn’t last. But that notion was extinguished when Dewhurst got tossed from his Lt. Governor seat by Dan Patrick in the very next primary election. Dewhurst couldn’t shake his unacceptable establishment identity then, and John Cornyn cannot now.
Cornyn has a choice.
He can see the writing on the wall, think about his legacy as a public servant, and deny Paxton and other MAGA extremists the satisfaction and the ability to push him out by leaving gracefully on his own. Has he forgotten being booed off the stage at the Texas Republican Party convention?
Or Cornyn can foolishly keep trying to win over a MAGA cult that hates him and count on an old-line mainstream Republican base that is all but extinct.
Over the first few weeks of Trump’s new term, Cornyn has been surrendering his dignity day by day. He voted to approve unqualified and unsuitable Pete Hegseth to lead our nation’s armed forces. He lobbed softball questions to Trump’s FBI appointee Kash Patel who wrote a book vowing retribution against Trump’s political opponents and has publicly stated that he will prosecute members of the press. Cornyn is giving a pass to both anti-vaxxer Robert Kennedy Jr. who sits as a direct threat to public health and to Tulsi Gabbard whose loyalty to our nation can be credibly questioned.
Don’t expect the MAGA mob in Texas to be impressed. They will hound and harass Cornyn until he decides against re-election or gets taken out in the primary. Politically, John Cornyn is a dead senator walking. It’s too late for him to save his political hide, but it’s not too late for John Cornyn to save his soul as a public servant.
Matt Angle is the Director of the Lone Star Project. Prior to founding the Lone Star Project, Angle spent over 20 years as a congressional staff member, during which he served as Chief of Staff to former Texas Congressman Martin Frost, Director of the US House Democratic Caucus, and Director of the US Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
