Texas is reliably red right now-—unless demographic factors change that state in the future as they have changed my state.
Cornyn will safely win re-election, no one doubts that.
I do not have the luxury of throwing my vote away on write in candidates or third party candidates here.
I can sympathize with your problem - I lived in King County Washington for five years.
I would suggest that you vote your conscience. IMO a Republican candidate is not entitled to your vote just because he has an "R" behind his or her name. The candidate has to hold enough good positions on the issues to earn your vote. On a couple of occasions, I have withheld my vote for that reason (the latest being Mitt Romney).
I would not characterize a third-party vote as a wasted vote. It is a valid way to express frustration with the major party candidates. The major parties monitor the defections to the third-party candidates carefully for each knows that if the defections become large, the major party has a problem. One thing is for sure - nothing will change in the Republican Party if conservatives continue to hold their nose and vote for crappy general election candidates just because the candidate has an "R" behind the name.
I'd love to see the Republicans gain control of the Senate and increase the majority in the House but I'm not foolish enough to believe that it will have a dramatic impact on the nation's direction. It won't be the Nirvana that the straight-party-line advocates seem to suggest. You know what we will hear in 2016 if the Republicans gain control of both houses of Congress in 2014? As you have seen we can't be effective without holding the executive branch, therefore, you just have to hold your nose and vote for this less-than-perfect (but really far worse than that) GOPe candidate for POTUS. In 2018, it will be some other reason to compromise your conservative principles. In 2020, it will be something else and so on.