Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) faced a significant defeat last night. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton easily defeated Cornyn in a race I thought he might lose, though the margin was surprising—Paxton secured nearly 64 percent of the vote. Cornyn has been a U.S. Senator from Texas since 2002, and in his last election, he was defeated by almost 30 points. I expected it to be 10-15, but it turned out to be 27—brutal but clear. This result sent a message to the Republican Party establishment: you will lose if you challenge or go to war with the base, which is MAGA.
There is concern trolling among Democrats, who think they can finally grab a seat here with werido, vegan, ‘God is nonbinary,’ and there are six genders acolyte James Talarico. Yet, the media coverage glosses over a major reason why Cornyn lost. Politico did touch on it, albeit many paragraphs down (via Politico) [emphasis mine]:
The senator was a towering figure in both national and Texas politics, known for his sober temperament, ability to cut deals and role in shaping the Senate GOP conference during the last four presidencies. Then, just about an hour after polls closed Tuesday, Cornyn lost his primary to Ken Paxton, a scandal-plagued MAGA darling who was boosted by President Donald Trump’s last-minute endorsement.
Cornyn’s defeat is rattling the establishment wing of the GOP, who viewed the brutal primary as a battle for the soul of the party. His supporters mourn his approaching absence in the Senate as another example of an institutionalist who fell victim to the rise of the populist right, what they see as the end of an era of compassionate conservatism.
“It just blows my mind that anybody could look at John Cornyn and somehow call him a secret liberal RINO,” said Josh Schroeder, mayor of Georgetown, Texas, and a Cornyn supporter. “If that guy can’t pass a conservative litmus test, who can?”
Cornyn’s loss stands to further deplete the corps of senators willing to work across the aisle on thorny policy issues, from immigration reform to gun safety — potentially contributing further to increasing polarization on Capitol Hill.
[…]
Cornyn kept to the outskirts of high-stakes bipartisan immigration talks, such as the “Gang of Eight” that sought a comprehensive overhaul in 2013. But he later partnered with Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona in exploring a narrower, border-security-focused bill.
He also found success reaching across the aisle in 2022 on gun safety legislation in the aftermath of the Uvalde school shooting. The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act was modest relative to Democratic demands for stricter gun control. But it was still the most significant federal gun legislation in a generation — and it provoked intense backlash among hard-right voters in Texas.
“We both know that when we’re doing what’s right, it doesn’t matter what other people think,” Cornyn texted Sinema at the time.
And that right there is where I turned my back on Cornyn, who was once the golden boy, the successor to Mitch McConnell after he left his leadership post: He betrayed us on guns. He dabbled in immigration reform—two issues that are non-negotiable with the base, and he did it. He was focused on optics, which led to an ignominious primary defeat.
No, these aren’t foreign invaders. It’s not like a Sea Peoples raid—MAGA is the GOP. They are the base and mostly align with Reagan’s agenda. However, there are also more populist tendencies. That shift allowed us to scale the Blue Wall twice in 12 years. It helped the GOP win the White House in the last election, secure the popular vote and the Electoral College, win all seven swing states, and absorb what was once called the Obama coalition.
We are the party, and there’s nothing you can do to save yourself if you turn against us. We’ll destroy you, just like Cornyn, who was run over by a tank and set on fire last night.
For the moderates who say they have no home, you never really did. Not in the GOP or the Democratic Party. No one wants you boring folks around; people who don’t fight. All of your kind—Olympia Snowe, Evan Bayh—left because they couldn’t handle the heat.
Moderate Republicans in Texas are going through it tonight.
— Bayliss Wagner (@baylisswagner) May 27, 2026
A Texas GOP staffer texted me, “As a moderate Republican, I have no place in this party anymore.”
“There is no middle ground. No room for moderates. Only far right or far left.”
Politics is warfare. It’s the organization of our animosities. And moderates would rather remain idle.
You folks can go away with Cornyn, too. The days of hoisting up losses as wins and parading moral victories are over.
No one is safe, GOP establishment. Time to pick sides, because MAGA isn't a flash-in-the-pan type of thing.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.