Regardless of U.S. Sen. Cornyn’s makes an attempt to cozy as much as President Donald Trump with more and more inflammatory rhetoric, the four-term Republican senator informed the Houston Chronicle that the White Home’s present occupant is unswayed.
“I stated, ‘Mr. President, this race could be over should you determined to endorse,’” Conryn stated in an interview. “He stated, ‘I do know, I do know.’ He’s clearly not prepared to do this. And I feel he needs to see how the race develops.”
Cornyn is dealing with off towards Texas Lawyer Basic Ken Paxton, a MAGA loyalist, within the major to maintain his long-held place within the U.S. Senate. The competition is proving one of many Lone Star State’s most watched this election cycle.
Polls present a good GOP major race between Paxton and Cornyn, with U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt in third. For the time being, it seems no candidate is more likely to hit the 50% threshold wanted to keep away from a runoff.
And with the first set for March 3, that doesn’t go away a lot time left to tip the scales.
In apparent bids for Trump’s favor, Cornyn has shared effusive social media posts concerning the president, together with one during which he posed studying the fact present real-estate mogul’s Artwork of the Deal. Final week, Cornyn defended Trump’s army strike on Venezuela and seize of Nicolás Maduro utilizing bogus claims of a made-up drug cartel and fentanyl trafficking.
But it appears it doesn’t matter what Cornyn says, he can’t appear to shake the RINO — Republican in Identify Solely — label.
Cornyn wasn’t all the time so obsequious towards Trump. In 2016, he known as the concept of a border wall “naive.”
Each Paxton and Hunt have seized on this level, accusing Cornyn of obstructing the development of 1,200 miles of border wall within the Rio Grande Valley.
Nevertheless, on Friday, Cornyn made a cease within the border city of Hidalgo, the place he talked harder. Talking to the press, he stated that migrant staff shouldn’t obtain protections till the border is safe, answering South Texas MAGA Congresswoman Monica De La Cruz’s name for a visa program for development staff to deal with the trade’s labor scarcity brought on by mass deportations.
“The very first thing we have to do is safe the border,” Cornyn stated throughout a information convention within the South Texas metropolis. “There isn’t a manner that the American folks, and positively my constituents in Texas, would permit us to take one other stab at reforming our immigration legal guidelines till we’ve received the border safe.”
Paxton and Hunt had been fast to name the go to a little bit of political theater.
“His 40-plus yr profession has been spent preventing for amnesty for illegals, chopping offers with Democrats, making an attempt to cease President Trump, and standing in the way in which of constructing the wall,” Paxton stated in a press release final week. “Texans aren’t going to neglect how Cornyn’s betrayed our nation, and no final minute journey to the border to attempt to act powerful goes to vary that.”
“Now that Trump’s secured our border, John Cornyn needs to take the credit score for the wall he tried to dam,” an assault advert from Hunt responded.
Cornyn has clarified up to now that he has a barely amended imaginative and prescient for the border wall, however that doesn’t imply he’s towards it. Cornyn has argued that sure components of the border aren’t topographically viable for constructing a 1,200-mile wall, including that measures equivalent to cameras and sensors might be used as a substitute.
“I’ve all the time supported what I might name a sensible wall,” Cornyn stated in an interview on the most recent episode of the Texas Take Podcast. “So the suggestion that I don’t help infrastructure, which is critical, which is a vital piece of that puzzle, is simply ridiculous.”
Despite the fact that Daddy continues to disregard him, Cornyn has garnered different endorsements, together with Senate Majority Chief John Thune who bested Cornyn within the contest for that place.
“He has been such an advocate by way of the years on the problem of border safety — foremost professional on it,” Thune stated. “Most of us, what we all know concerning the border, we all know from him.”
Cornyn has additionally had his best fundraising quarter ever, elevating $7 million within the ultimate quarter of 2025 for a complete of $15 million money available. Hunt and Paxton haven’t but launched their newest fundraising totals.
The Cornyn marketing campaign and allied teams have additionally spent greater than $40 million in promoting, a lot of it heaping reward on Trump — solely to be ignored.
Spending $40 million and not using a return on funding doesn’t precisely sound like somebody who’s mastered the “artwork of the deal.”
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‘I stated, “Mr. President, this race could be over should you determined to endorse,”‘ Cornyn stated because the clock runs down.
The Democratic U.S. rep took a whirlwind tour of SA Sunday, together with stops at church buildings, an East Aspect restaurant and a Southtown taqueria.
The particular assembly, requested by Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones, will embody time for group enter.
