My experience with John Cornyn has been a disappointment. At best, Cornyn is wishy-washy on guns, especially when it comes to ordinary people carrying them. In fairness, the same could be said of Charles Cotton, the former president of the NRA. When I talked to Cotton back when we were trying to get permitless open carry of handguns in Texas, he told me he didn’t think Texans were ready for it. Really.
In any event, when Cornyn ran for Phil Gramm’s seat in the Senate in 2002, the former Texas Attorney General won fairly easily. The same was true in the 2008, 2014, and 2020 elections. In the 2014 midterm elections Cornyn received 79% more votes than his Democratic challenger.
But, in his early campaign for a fifth term in 2026, John Cornyn is having trouble. In fact, it’s possible he won’t even survive the Republican primary. He is not polling as well as his primary opponent, current Texas AG Ken Paxton and focus groups are giving Paxton a small edge.
Part of the problem is Cornyn disparaged Trump during the campaign, although he’s cozying up to the President like the Donald was a long-lost brother.
A bigger problem is voters have memories and 2022 wasn’t that long ago.
2022 is when John Cornyn help to get anti-gun Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy’s Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA) through Congress. While Cornyn wasn’t the only one (North Carolina Republican Senator Thom Tillis was also a factor), he was the one in the spotlight.
After Joe Biden immediately began both abusing the new law, and ignoring the inconvenient bits, Cornyn did introduce a joint resolution of Congressional disapproval, but in a Senate controlled by Democrats delightedly crowing over their new gun control law, there was never a chance it would go anywhere – and everyone back home knew this.
Some people blamed Cornyn’s caving into Murphy on the tragedy at Robb Elementary in Uvalde. However, even the voters in Uvalde saw concession as a sellout. Tony Rodriguez, the U.S. Representative for Texas District 23, was one of the Republicans Cornyn wrangled into supporting the BSCA. While Rodriguez had won his previous election with a decent margin, he was almost eliminated in the Republican primary runoff by Brandon Herrera, the outrageously pro-gun YouTuber. Just 352 votes separated the two.
So in addition to completely misreading the room when it came to Donald Trump, Cornyn also has a Biden-shaped albatross hanging around his neck.
Cornyn, who had hoped to replace Mitch McConnell as Senate Majority Leader, lost to Jon Thune of North Dakota. This is good because McConnell, whose views were often similar to Cornyn’s, wasn’t pro-2A, either. Had it not been for McConnell, we might have had nationwide concealed carry reciprocity in Trump’s first term.
These days, Cornyn is trying to make amends. He even introduced a version of the nationwide carry reciprocity act. However, he’s got a long row to hoe to win back 2A advocates.
Cornyn’s Albatross
