For a decade, not one lukewarm Republican incumbent senator or governor has lost a primary and been replaced by a more conservative challenger under Donald Trump’s leadership of the GOP. That changed Tuesday night.
Four-term U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) did not merely lose to state Attorney General Ken Paxton. He got routed by 28 points.
The Paxton endorsement and Cornyn’s defeat should have marked a turning point in Trump’s political strategy. Instead, they look like the high point of the cycle.
The decisive factor was obvious: Trump finally endorsed the challenger instead of the RINO incumbent. Now, imagine what the party might look like if he had done that over the past five election cycles.
The point is not to dwell on missed opportunities. Upcoming primaries in red states will determine whether conservatives retain any real statewide fighters.
Paxton’s victory proves Trump could finish his term by draining the swamp. Sadly, he more often sides with the swamp or stays silent long enough for moneyed interests to crush more principled candidates.
Most insurgent challengers lack Paxton’s name recognition. But if Trump’s endorsement could move Paxton from a close race to a 240-county rout, it could make lesser-known challengers competitive against weak incumbents. In open seats, a grassroots conservative with Trump’s backing would be nearly unbeatable.
Several upcoming races offer conservatives a chance to make red states actually govern like red states. Too often, Trump is absent or on the wrong side.
Start with Iowa.
Gov. Kim Reynolds is retiring, and Democrats have fielded a credible challenger pretending to be a moderate while running against land grabs. Republicans need a non-corporatist nominee who does not carry the baggage of the status quo Republicans in Congress.
Betting markets have RINO Rep. Randy Feenstra as the heavy favorite for the GOP nomination because he has the most money and name identification. Conservatives have fielded multiple candidates, but with only days until the election, Zach Lahn has the most traction and the clearest message against data centers and land grabs.
Thankfully, Trump has not endorsed Feenstra. But if he endorsed Lahn, Lahn could win outright without a runoff.
The Iowa Senate race shows the opposite problem. Former state Sen. Jim Carlin challenged Sen. Joni Ernst after she obstructed Pete Hegseth’s nomination. Trump should have endorsed Carlin. Instead, he encouraged Ernst to run again. Then, when Ernst retired thanks to Carlin’s hard work, Trump endorsed RINO Rep. Ashley Hinson, ensuring no improvement over Ernst.
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Trump made a similar move in Louisiana. Sen. Bill Cassidy was already politically wounded, with conservative challengers in the race. Trump could have helped finish him. Instead, he helped clear the field for Rep. Julia Letlow, a carbon capture supporter backed by major AI money who declined to run when the race looked difficult.
South Dakota presents the next major red-state test.
Sen. Mike Rounds represents everything MAGA claims to hate on social, fiscal, and national security policy. Yet Trump endorsed him last year, clearing the field and guaranteeing no serious opposition. This has become a familiar pattern. A Trump endorsement effectively cancels the primary.
The biggest prize in South Dakota is the governor’s race. After MAGA Inc. promoted Kristi Noem as a conservative champion, many of us warned she was a capricious establishment Republican. Her lieutenant governor, Larry Rhoden, took over the term and now seeks a full one. Rep. Dusty Johnson, former leader of the RINO Main Street Partnership, is also running. So is wealthy businessman Toby Doeden, who claims the MAGA label while pushing data centers.
Speaker Jon Hansen is the only conservative in the race. He led the fight against carbon capture land grabs, helped build a conservative majority in the state House, and fought the abortion amendment, marijuana amendment, and COVID tyranny in South Dakota. Now, he is fighting data centers.
A Trump endorsement would likely win the race for Hansen. Instead, conservatives have to worry that Trump might intervene on the wrong side if the race heads to a runoff.
Anyone who thought Trump’s late endorsement against Cornyn signaled a strategic turning point should look at South Carolina. Trump recently reaffirmed his endorsement of Sen. Lindsey Graham ahead of the June 9 primary against Matt Lynch and several other candidates.
Trump’s endorsements of Graham in 2020 and again now have driven off stronger challengers. That is clearly why, barring a miracle, one of the most obnoxious Republicans in the Senate will probably remain there until he dies.
Even when conservatives cannot defeat incumbent RINOs, they should at least ensure that open seats produce better Republicans. Montana shows how hard the establishment works to prevent that.
Trump and the RINO establishment that runs the Montana GOP helped execute a sleazy scheme around Sen. Steve Daines’ retirement. Daines announced his retirement on the filing deadline while the establishment had U.S. Attorney Kurt Alme lined up to walk into the seat without a primary. The goal was obvious: avoid a competitive race from a member of the Montana Freedom Caucus.
Meanwhile, Gov. Greg Gianforte, another RINO Trump ally, is at war with the state Freedom Caucus and is spending heavily to defeat conservative incumbents in the legislature next Tuesday.
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This pattern keeps repeating. Trump elevates, preserves, and empowers statewide GOP leaders who hate conservatives. Those leaders then turn their guns on freedom caucus members in their own legislatures.
Idaho proved the point last week. Trump’s endorsement of Gov. Brad Little for a third term helped keep him in power. Little then spent hundreds of thousands of dollars helping defeat five conservatives in the legislature.
North Dakota shows the same dynamic. Trump cleared the field for governor two years ago and helped install Rep. Kelly Armstrong, one of the most liberal Republicans in Congress. Armstrong is not up for re-election this year, so he is using his money and clout to target the few conservatives in a legislature with almost no official Democrats but plenty of undocumented ones.
Trump has generally stayed out of state legislative races. But his long shadow of RINO endorsements now creates a greater headwind against conservative candidates than ever before.
And don’t even get me started on Trump’s endorsement of Byron Donalds in Florida to replace the greatest governor of this generation.
The Paxton endorsement and Cornyn’s defeat should have marked a turning point in Trump’s political strategy. Instead, they look like the high point of the cycle.
From here, conservatives have every reason to worry that Trump will return to his old habit: rewarding the swamp, clearing the field for weak Republicans, and leaving the movement’s best fighters to fend for themselves.
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