When President Donald Trump betrayed Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) by endorsing his primary rival, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, in the latter's ultimately-successful intraparty challenge, experts speculated that the president may have politically hit himself in the face. The reasoning was that Cornyn was both electable in Texas and a diehard MAGA loyalist, while Paxton — though also hardcore MAGA — is weighed down by a number of financial and personal scandals.
Now there is another race that may go to the Democrats because of Cornyn's resentment toward the president, at least if Cornyn's retweeting of a pro-Democrat post is any indication.
On Wednesday night Cornyn retweeted a post of an editorial by Republican consultant Karl Rove which said "Why I'm Voting for a Texas Democrat by @KarlRove." Later he quoted from the editorial in a separate tweet that ”The GOP’s stables need a cleaning. This is a good place to start.“ In response journalist Molly Jong-Fast asked "Are you?" while economist Catherine Rampell posted a pair of interested eyes. The Independent's Eric Michael Garcia asked "Cornyn reposts Karl Rove's op-ed about voting for Rosenthal over Bo French. Sooooo, is Cornyn going to vote for Rosenthal too?"
By contrast, some conservatives were angry at Cornyn. Right-wing commentator Benny Johnson wrote "the sitting 'Republican' Senator of Texas, who lost by 27+ points in his primary, is now telling people to vote Democrat. Spineless. Your own voters rejected you. Now you're endorsing the party whose beliefs are antithetical to what Texans stand for. Pure betrayal. This is why we lose." Similarly right-wing influencer Jack Posobiec commented, "And there it is." Meanwhile former Trump Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Caputo wrote that Cornyn "will not be missed."
Cornyn and Rove are endorsing Democratic Texas Railroad Commissioner nominee Jon Rosenthal over Republican Bo French because French recently posted a racist comment about University of Texas students on social media.
"In one post," recently reported The New York Times' McGaughy. "Mr. French described South Asian students at the school as 'foreigners' who had 'displaced' Americans at the state's flagship university. Mr. French's posts struck a chord in a way his anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim comments have not before. The messages threatened to fracture the Texas Republicans' attempts at solidarity and tested their willingness to criticize one of their own — just weeks before midterm voting begins. Mr. French denied his posts were racist and threw the blame back on Republicans who didn't fully support his message."
McGaughy continued, "The posts have also given Democrats renewed hope to win a statewide office in Texas for the first time in a generation. While much of the national focus has been on the U.S. Senate race against Mr. Paxton, the scandal-plagued attorney general running against James Talarico, state party officials believe Mr. French and another anti-immigrant hardliner, Don Huffines, are particularly vulnerable. The hardliners on the Republican slate may help Democrats in other races as well."
