Trump did not care. He liked that Paxton used his office of Attorney General to troll Democrats, and that his style of politics at times flirted with burn-it-down nihilism. Cornyn, but contrast, is a gentleman who works with Democrats where he can and an institutionalist who refused to heed Trump’s call to end the Senate tradition of the filibuster. It came to style over substance, personality over policy. If you’re not wearing a red MAGA hat, you’ve gotta’ go.
Cornyn, who was a contender to lead the Senate Republicans just two years ago, was seen as a safe candidate heading into his re-election bid. Republicans—both in the Senate and back in Texas—warned that the state’s epic winning streak would be threatened with Paxton as the nominee given the long, long history of unseemly allegations against him involving corruption, marital infidelity, abuse of power, securities fraud, and bribery—so much of a litany that the Republican-controlled Texas state House voted to impeach him in 2023. (He was acquitted by the Republican-controlled state Senate.)
