Cornyn Sounds Off on SAVE Act, Latest Texas Polling: ‘I’m Not Gonna Say I Told You So, But…’

AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) dropped some unfiltered commentary Thursday, pouring cold water on the SAVE Act’s chance of passing and sounding off about the latest polling in the Texas Senate race for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R), who defeated him in the primary runoff in May.

To say that the Cornyn v. Paxton primary battle was bitter and brutal is an epic understatement. The incumbent was widely viewed as a stronger candidate in the general election due to Paxton’s series of scandals, lawsuits, and controversies — not to mention a messy and contentious pending divorce — but the attorney general got support from the MAGA wing of the GOP for his combative, far-right stances.

President Donald Trump initially declined to endorse for the primary, and rumors were swirling that he was expected to endorse Cornyn, but in the final days of the runoff (and when polling showed Paxton with a substantial lead), Trump threw his support behind the AG.

The primary was far less fractious on the Democratic side. State Rep. James Talarico (D) surpassed Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) by a comfortable margin and without needing a runoff; she conceded the race the next morning and tweeted a call for her supporters to “remain united” and “rally around our nominees.”

The latest polling in the race shows Cornyn and his supporters may be vindicated in their concerns about Paxton’s electability. A New York Times/Siena poll conducted last month had the race tied, with Talarico clobbering Paxton among Hispanic and independent voters and concerns about Paxton’s messy ethical problems dragging him down.

The night Cornyn lost the runoff, he vowed to support “the Republican ticket,” but he’s made a series of comments in the wake of the election that have raised eyebrows for being widely viewed as critical about Paxton, Trump, and other issues connected to GOP politics.

Thursday morning, Cornyn was again sharing some thoughts on social media, drawing angry responses from some Trump and Paxton supporters and even clapping back.

Cornyn kicked off the morning by sharing a link to an op-ed by Karl Rove calling the concept of “Heritage Americans” that has been pushed by Vice President JD Vance and others on the right an “un-American idea.”

He seemed to voice another pro-immigrant view with a tweet sharing an article from The New York Times headlined, “How a Nation of Immigrants Traces Its Roots.”

He took direct aim at the SAVE Act, a bill Trump has aggressively pushed the Republican-majority Congress to pass by sharing a Politico article calling it the “GOP’s dirty little secret” that the bill “can’t even pass the House.”

That post drew some angry replies from his critics; the senator shrugged them off. “Absurd,” he wrote. “You just can’t handle the facts.” He followed that up with the famous moment from the trial scene in the 1992 film A Few Good Men in which Jack Nicholson’s character, U.S. Marine Corps Colonel Nathan R. Jessep bellows, “You can’t handle the truth!”

Mediaite reached out to Cornyn for comment on these posts and his thoughts on the Texas Senate race. He did not respond to a question about his tweet on the SAVE Act, but when asked about the polling showing Talarico tied with Paxton, he replied, “I’m not gonna say I told you so, but… .ominous for down ballot races” (punctuation is as written in Cornyn’s message; the ellipsis does not indicate an omission).

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