Facing the toughest race of his Senate career, John Cornyn warned a small crowd of supporters from the second floor of his campaign bus last week that his party’s long-held dominance in this historically ruby-red state was at risk.
But while the three-term Texas senator demonized Democrats at length, he didn’t spend much time talking up the obvious alternative: President Donald Trump, the leader of his party, the man at the top of his ticket Tuesday.
Asked whether Trump, the man who redefined Republicanism, was an asset to Cornyn’s reelection effort, the senator was suddenly short on words.
“Absolutely,” he said, stone-faced.
Cornyn’s gentle distancing from Trump foreshadows a far less genteel battle to come. This year’s election seems likely to plunge both Republicans and Democrats into a period of disarray no matter who wins the White House. With moderates and…
