Cornyn Hopes Phil Gramm Pitch at Rally
More Fruitful than His 1990 Rescue Ride
Capitol Inside
May 18, 2026
Midland Republican Clayton Williams was falling apart in the closing days of the Texas governor's race in 1990 when the GOP powers that be dispatched Phil Gramm to Laredo on the Friday before the general election in an attempt to save the party's nominee from himself. Gramm, who'd been a U.S. senator at the time, was shuttled to a high school gym in the Texas border city for a pep rally four days before the vote.
Now - three dozen years later - the Texas Republicans who are old enough to remember Gramm may have felt a sense of déjà vu on Monday when the ex-solon surfaced in San Antonio for a rally for U.S. Senator John Cornyn in the stretch of a GOP primary runoff that polling has shown him with a decent chance to lose.
But Cornyn, who took Gramm's place in the Senate, will hope that his predecessor's appearance on his behalf will have a more positive effect on his fight to keep the seat in an overtime duel with Attorney General Ken Paxton than the former senator had on the Williams campaign in the stretch of the race that Democrat Ann Richards won as the underdog throughout the race until the end. .
After trailing the Republican from start to finish in the 1990 gubernatorial contest, Richards beat Williams by more than 2 points with 49 percent of the vote that year. By the time Gramm arrived for the emergency rescue mission in the South Texas city across the Rio Grande from Mexico, it was too late to stop the hemorrhaging that had intensified the day before when Williams admitted in response to questions from reporters that he hadn't paid income taxes just four years earlier.
Speaking in a vintage southern drawl as a native of Georgia, Gramm acted as though he'd been been appalled when learning that the Democratic candidate for governor here had the audacity to bash Williams for owing nothing to the federal government at a time when collapsing oil prices inflicted significant harm to the energy and real estate industries in Texas.
"Ann Richards just discovered that 1986 was a bad year for Texas oil," Gramm said at the Williams rally in Laredo. The word oil sounded more like "all" when Gramm spoke about the black crude in his adopted state.
Gramm argued that Richards didn't know that the oil business suffered the year when Williams didn't pay taxes to the federal government. Gramm said Richards was clueless because she'd been "under a rock" in 1986 while drawing "a big fat paycheck as a bureaucrat" in her job as the state treasurer at the time.
Williams didn't make a living on oil and gas production alone. He owned a major bank and a communications company called ClayDesta - which was named after him and wife Modesta. Williams had a swimming pool shaped like a boot at his ranch near Fort Stockton. He was known for wearing cowboy hat and boots with expensive suits - and he traveled on his own private Lear Jet as a candidate in the quest for governor.
Capitol Inside publisher Mike Hailey was on hand for the Laredo event that featured Gramm as one of several reporters for major newspapers that had traveled with the Republican during the final 10 days of the race in 1990. Hailey had known Gramm when he was a Democrat in the U.S. House - and he'd been in the restroom at the Laredo rally after it ended when the senator came in and said hello with a long and somber look pasted across his face.
Cornyn was elected as Gramm's replacement in 2002 when he stepped down after from the Senate after 17 years. But Cornyn's camp reserved the attack dog role for Rick Perry at the event in the Alamo City today to commemorate the kick off of early voting for the runoff election on Tuesday next week.
The circumstances are different in 2026 as far as Gramm's ability to impact the overtime vote. Williams had been in the midst of a free fall in polls on the fight for governor when Gramm jetted into the border town for the rescue ride that failed. After leading Paxton by 1.5 points in the March primary election with 42 percent of the vote, Cornyn has been a slight underdog in the Senate runoff that polls have found Paxton leading by almost 4 points on average in overtime. Williams had been a substantial favorite at the outset of the race he fumbled away to Richard and the Democrats in the battle for governor here 36 years ago.
Gramm left most of the Paxton pounding in SA today to the former Texas governor who served as President Donald Trump's first energy secretary. The former senator from the Lone Star State kept it simple. “He’s done the job for us,” Gramm said of Cornyn. "“He’s worked hard for us in Washington.”
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|
DATE |
SAMPLE |
CORNYN |
TALARCIO |
LEADER |
|
4/22-5/06 |
1,223 LV |
45% |
44% |
Cornyn +1 |
|
4/10-20 |
1,200 RV |
33% |
40% |
Talarico +7 |
|
4/17-20 |
1,018 LV |
41% |
44% |
Talarico +3 |
|
3/12-17 |
900 LV |
41% |
43% |
Talarico +2 |
|
3/04-05 |
576 RV |
43% |
44% |
Talarico +1 |
Average |
|
|
|
|
Talarico +3 |
POLL |
DATE |
SAMPLE |
PAXTON |
TALARCIO |
LEADER |
|
4/22-5/06 |
1,223 LV |
45% |
45% |
Even |
|
4/10-20 |
1,200 RV |
34% |
42% |
Talarico +8 |
|
4/17-20 |
1,018 LV |
41% |
46% |
Talarico +5 |
|
3/12-17 |
900 LV |
43% |
44% |
Talarico +1 |
|
3/04-05 |
576 RV |
45% |
47% |
Talarico +2 |
Average |
|
|
|
|
Talarico +4 |
|
| 
