Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) on January 23, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (USDA photo by Tom Witham/Flickr)
In a U.S. Senate runoff primary election set for Tuesday, May 26, Texas Republicans will choose between conservative incumbent Sen. John Cornyn and his far-right MAGA challenger, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. The winner will go up against the Democratic nominee, Texas State Rep. James Talarico, in the general election. And the GOP primary, according to The New Republic's Sam Russek, continues to be extremely bitter as Cornyn and Paxton go out of their way to please President Donald Trump.
Paxton, Russek observes, keeps running attack ads accusing Cornyn of being insufficiently loyal to Trump. Meanwhile, Cornyn is trying to win Trump's endorsement by pushing a bill that would rename U.S. Highway 287 in honor of the president.
"On practically every other level," Russek explains in The New Republic," Cornyn is about as orthodox a neoconservative as they come — trafficking the same revanchist, free-market dogma as decades of Republicans before him…. But in his 24 years as senator — six of which were spent as Republican whip, the second-highest ranking position in the Senate Republican Conference — the ground has shifted beneath his feet. This isn't to say the party 'left him,' as other longtime politicians have lately complained."
Russek continues, "If anything, Cornyn has gone great lengths to keep with the times, and in an increasingly cloying manner…. And online, the septuagenarian frequently rails against Democrats with 'Trump derangement syndrome.' It’s all somewhat undignified, but these are undignifying times."
Some well-known conservatives, including Washington Post columnist George Will and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota), believe that if Paxton is the nominee instead of Cornyn, that U.S. Senate seat could be in play for Democrats in the general election.
"Paxton accused (Cornyn) of having 'put Texans last by rolling out the red carpet for the invasion of our state,'" Russek observes. "Democrats haven't won a statewide seat in Texas for over 30 years; that this so-called 'invasion' of Texas has apparently continued under their watch is invariably blamed on other figures, local and national. But more recently, the target of Republicans' ire has been other Republicans — and whether they've gone far enough…. For decades, Texas' political class got rich off the fat forked over by oil magnates and techno-capitalists, real estate moguls and logistics empires."
Russek adds, "It overlooked most of its residents' living conditions in favor of tax incentives aimed at enticing international investment. But the secret to their success was — and still is — their willingness to eat their own."