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. . . to most people—including many Texas Democrats—Cornyn’s run for reelection in 2020 seemed like just another sure thing, one last ride before the 67-year-old hung up his spurs and started raking it in as a lobbyist or a rainmaker for some big-deal law firm. Cornyn is certainly still the favorite at this point in the race, but in the last few months, his invincibility has come to look, well, less sure. In fact, a few things have happened that might be responsible for turning fat-cat Republicans into fraidy-cat Republicans.
The first shock came with Beto O’Rourke’s surprisingly narrow loss to Cruz in 2016. And then the polls started rolling in. In February, a Quinnipiac poll showed that voters actually liked Cruz better than Cornyn—51 to 43 percent. This September, another Quinnipiac survey showed that 23 percent of Texas voters said they would definitely consider voting for Cornyn, while 35 percent said they definitely would not. Thirty percent were leaning toward supporting him, while 13 percent were still undecided. You could almost hear the huhs among ambitious Democrats.
Unlike Cruz, Cornyn has a squishy base. Cornyn started out as a Bush Republican, but as time passed and politics changed, he tacked right and then further right like virtually all Texas Republicans. But perhaps Cornyn wasn’t convincing enough as he shifted: Despite his Trumpian voting record, he’s drawn a tea party opponent in the primary. State senator Pat Fallon, of Prosper, is hitting Cornyn in the same way some of the Democratic presidential candidates are attacking front-runner Joe Biden: “What would happen in Texas if we can finally have a candidate—a new one—that energized the right?” Fallon said in a speech on September 9, before announcing he was exploring a run. “That gave everybody in this room something to believe in.”
Fallon is probably not much of a threat, but Cornyn’s fealty to President Trump, which probably looked like a good idea early on, might create other problems for Half of all Texans are not fans of the president, according to most polling. If you are a Republican, maybe you are okay with the border wall, but perhaps those family separations make it hard to sleep at night. Maybe you’re worried about labor shortages that Trump’s anti-immigration policies could create in your business. And what about the trade policies that threaten to cut into profits generated in ports from Laredo to Houston?
