Longtime Republican pollster Frank Luntz recently declared, “There is zero doubt tonight that Donald Trump is in complete and total control of the Republican Party.” His statement came after the president’s preferred candidate, Ken Paxton, primaried Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) in late May.

Luntz was not alone in seeing a political colossus. “Trump’s grip on the Republican party has never been tighter,” the Guardian reported after the primary win by Paxton, the Texas attorney general. “The GOP is ‘Donald Trump’s party,’” Kentucky’s WUKY radio station stated. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) expressed the same sentiment on NBC’s Meet the Press: “This is the party of Donald Trump.”