Defeated Texas Senator John Cornyn has now made unmistakably clear that the political establishment he embodies would rather align with Democrats than stand with the conservative, pro-Trump base that just removed him from office.
The outgoing Republican senator promoted a Wall Street Journal opinion column by longtime Bush-era strategist Karl Rove titled Why Im Voting for a Texas Democrat. According to The Gateway Pundit, Cornyn then went further, publicly embracing Roves declaration that The GOPs stables need a cleaning. This is a good place to start.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Cornyn condemned Republican nominee Bo Frenchs social media post and urged other GOP officials to follow his lead. Cornyns move signaled that, even after a decisive primary defeat, he remains more comfortable policing conservatives than challenging Democrats.
The race Roveand now Cornynwant to use as their test case is not the U.S. Senate contest but the Texas Railroad Commission. That three-member body oversees oil and gas in the nations energy heartland, making it one of the most consequential regulatory posts in the state.
Republican nominee Bo French is facing Houston Democrat Jon Rosenthal for the seat. Rove announced he will vote for Rosenthal, calling him the first Democrat he has supported since Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock in 1994.
The uproar began when French posted a viral message after the University of Texas defeated Ohio State in football. French shared a photo of the UT student section and wrote that he had heard UT graduation looked like this and that the problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined, a reference to a crowd that appeared heavily South Asian.
Frenchs underlying pointmass immigration and rapid demographic change at a flagship public universityis a concern many Texas parents discuss openly. Rove, however, denounced the post as raw, uncut bigotry and part of a long and ugly pattern, then escalated his criticism to claim an increasing number of bigots are taking over the GOP.
Cornyn did not attempt a nuanced disagreement or a mild rebuke of Frenchs tone. Instead, he amplified Roves column to his remaining followers and personally adopted the stables line as his own rallying cry against the partys populist wing.
In May, Texas Republican voters overwhelmingly rejected Cornyn in the GOP Senate runoff. Trump-endorsed Attorney General Ken Paxton defeated the four-term incumbent by roughly 64 percent to 36 percent, a landslide that underscored the bases frustration with establishment Republicans.
Cornyn entered that race with every traditional advantage: money, consultants, Bush-aligned donors, and a self-advertised 99-percent Trump voting score he brandished like a protective shield. Primary voters were unmoved and sent him packing anyway, signaling that voting records alone cannot erase years of alignment with the partys old guard.
The Gateway Pundit chronicled Cornyns political collapse as it unfolded, noting that he conceded in a sparsely attended room after admitting he had come up short. He then turned to the New York Times to predict that Donald Trump would endure the most miserable two years of his life if returned to the White House.
Cornyn subsequently derided the Texas GOP as dysfunctional because turnout in his runoff was low, rather than confronting his own disconnect from the grassroots. Now he is boosting a Bush-era operative who wants Republicans to punish their own nominee for simply pointing out what a UT football crowd looks like.
Roves latest maneuver surprised few conservatives who have watched him attack the MAGA movement for years. The Gateway Pundit reported that at a private Headliners Club lunch in Austin, Rove vowed to vote Democrat in the Railroad Commission race and labeled French a bigot.
Hours after those remarks surfaced, President Trump blasted Rove as a stone cold loser suffering from a major case of Trump Derangement Syndrome and questioned why Fox News and the Wall Street Journal keep his RINO Voice alive. Cornyn effectively supplied the answer by amplifying Roves column, underscoring how a fading Republican establishment would rather smear its own voters as bigots than confront the cultural and immigration issues reshaping Texas before everyones eyes.
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