John Cornyn on Senate races: GOP bungled it

Conryn suggested candidates like Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock defeated themselves

Texas Sen. John Cornyn, the incoming Republican whip who led his party’s Senate campaign efforts this year, candidly acknowledged the GOP bungled a prime opportunity to take control of the chamber through a combination of poor polling, poor candidates and a poor job of selling its message.

While claiming Democrats “got lucky” in gaining two Senate seats, the Texas Republican admitted his party had an image deficiency with women, minorities and disaffected voters — one that needs to be immediately addressed before suffering the consequences in the next election cycle.

During an interview in his Senate hideaway in the basement of the Capitol, Cornyn told POLITICO that the 2012 elections exposed that the GOP had a “brand problem” and a “tactical problem.”

“How can we convey what I believe is the true image, that Republicans actually do care about people of all races, ethnicities, and classes in America?” Cornyn said as his party began charting a way out of the wilderness after last week’s devastating losses.

Cornyn, tapped by his Republican colleagues Wednesday as the new minority whip (a promotion that makes him No. 2 to Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in the Senate GOP hierarchy), chaired the National Republican Senatorial Committee during the last two cycles. And as he seeks a third Senate term in 2014, Cornyn will be running at a time when brutal GOP primaries have contributed greatly to the Republicans’ Senate struggles; Cornyn expects both he and McConnell will face primary challengers in 2014.

In the interview, Cornyn said the party is reassessing its approach to Senate primaries, deciding whether to continue the hands-off approach GOP leaders employed in primaries this year, or whether to select their preferred candidates in the contested intraparty fights, a tactic that generated sharp blowback from the GOP base in 2010.

“What is the goal here? I think the goal is to elect principled conservatives in November, not just nominate somebody in the primary that has very little chance of getting elected in November,” Cornyn said. “That doesn’t advance the conservative agenda because you have to be elected before you can govern.”

In 2010, Republicans widely praised Cornyn for helping lead the GOP charge to pick up seven additional seats, even though they fell short in winnable races in Nevada, Delaware and Colorado. But this year, instead of the huge Election Day both McConnell and Cornyn had planned for, Republicans instead suffered a net loss of two Senate seats — a stunning development given that Democrats were defending 23 seats, versus only 10 for the GOP.

They lost in red states, like Montana, Missouri, North Dakota and Indiana; in blue states, like Connecticut and Hawaii; and in purple states, like Florida, Ohio and Virginia. The only Democratic seat they picked up was in Nebraska.

The 6o-year-old Cornyn added that the party needs to “reflect” on why the message of their governing philosophy is not resonating to regular voters in critical battleground states.

“I told my colleagues today that I had a pollster years ago who said if they could only ask one question in a poll, it would be, ‘Does John Cornyn care about people like you?’ If people say ‘no,’ then you don’t have a chance. If they say ‘yes,’ then you got a shot.”

Cornyn admitted he’s heard the complaints about the NRSC’s performance this year, and he acknowledged that the committee shares “some responsibility” for the party’s failure to win the majority. But the Texas Republican said there was little the committee could do to influence the GOP’s divisive primary process, while adding there was plenty of blame to spread throughout the party — from GOP leaders to political operatives to the candidates themselves.