{"id":9431,"date":"2026-05-27T13:01:49","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T13:01:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=9431"},"modified":"2026-05-27T13:01:49","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T13:01:49","slug":"cornyn-went-to-great-lengths-to-avoid-trumps-wrath-the-texas-senator-lost-his-seat-anyway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=9431","title":{"rendered":"Cornyn went to great lengths to avoid Trump\u2019s wrath. The Texas senator lost his seat anyway"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

By THOMAS BEAUMONT and JESSE BEDAYN<\/strong><\/p>\n

PLANO, Texas (AP) \u2014 As it turned out, it would never be enough.<\/p>\n

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn tried for more than a year to show Donald Trump and Texas Republicans that he and the president were on the same team.<\/p>\n

Read more US military strike on alleged drug boat in the eastern Pacific kills 1, leaves 2 survivors<\/a><\/p>\n

Cornyn posted a photo of himself reading Trump\u2019s \u201cThe Art of the Deal.\u201d He proposed legislation to rename a stretch of interstate in Trump\u2019s honor. Perhaps most glaringly, the Senate institutionalist who long supported the filibuster reversed his position in a failed effort to advance voting restrictions that are a priority for the president.<\/p>\n

None of it worked. On Tuesday, Cornyn became the latest in a line of Republicans who lost their primaries after falling out of favor with a president with little tolerance for dissent and a seemingly insatiable appetite for retribution. The four-term senator lost by double digits to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who Trump endorsed last week as \u201ca true MAGA Warrior.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cornyn, on the other hand, \u201cwas VERY disloyal to me,\u201d Trump wrote on social media.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s intervention in the Texas runoff came after weeks of successfully backing primary challengers in Indiana, Louisiana and Kentucky as revenge against incumbents who broke with his agenda.<\/p>\n

Cornyn\u2019s attempt to avoid the same fate made even some of his supporters wince.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

\u201cYou look at the positions he took to please the president and the groveling and whatever,\u201d said former Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona, a Republican and Trump critic who didn\u2019t seek reelection during the president\u2019s first midterm in 2018. \u201cIt was rather painful to watch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump took an uncommonly equanimous approach to Tuesday\u2019s results the following morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cCongratulations to Ken Paxton on such a tremendous win, and to John Cornyn for having run a strong and powerful race but, more importantly, having had a truly great career,\u201d he wrote on social media. \u201cJohn will remain my friend for a long time to come, as we both watch Ken become a fantastic, common sense Senator, one who is respected by all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cornyn started early with ad touting pro-Trump voting record<\/h4>\n

Cornyn\u2019s loss wasn\u2019t for a lack of political gymnastics and astronomical campaign spending.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

His campaign began running an advertisement last summer \u2014 part of an astounding nearly-$100-million air war by the senator and allied groups \u2014 with Cornyn looking into the camera and saying, \u201cI voted with President Trump 99% of the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Cornyn\u2019s campaign homepage, Trump and Cornyn stand side-by-side with thumbs pointed upward in an image aimed at projecting solidarity. Deeper in the website, the category titled \u201cThe Trump-Cornyn Record\u201d notes the senator\u2019s role securing votes for Trump\u2019s signature 2017 tax cut bill.<\/p>\n

Cornyn has also been championing provisions in Trump\u2019s signature tax-and-spending legislation to finance work on the U.S.-Mexico border wall.<\/p>\n

The senator had dismissed the project as \u201cnaive\u201d during Trump\u2019s 2016 campaign. But in January, he stood along a section of completed wall in Texas\u2019 Rio Grande Valley touting the measure\u2019s $11 billion for Texas contractors\u2019 work at \u201cthe direction of the president of the United States, to whom I am very grateful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Trump is getting the Republican Party that he wants. But can he win in the midterms?<\/a><\/p>\n

Cornyn\u2019s 2023 dismissal of Trump\u2019s return glares in background<\/h4>\n

Cornyn\u2019s praise for his party\u2019s leader and president were not unusual, but they clash with a statement Cornyn made in May 2023, when Trump was mounting his presidential comeback campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrump\u2019s time has passed him by,\u201d he told reporters. \u201cI don\u2019t think President Trump understands that when you run in a general election, you have to appeal to voters beyond your base.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump would go on to easily win the nomination and carry every battleground state in the general election.<\/p>\n

Cornyn would hew closely to the president for the first 16 months of his second administration, hoping at the outside chance of his endorsement or to keeping him from weighing in at all.<\/p>\n

But Trump did not forget the past slights.<\/p>\n

\u201cJohn Cornyn is a good man, and I worked well with him, but he was not supportive of me when times were tough,\u201d he wrote on social media while endorsing Paxton.<\/p>\n