Former President Donald Trump’s surprise endorsement of Rep. Ted Budd in the North Carolina Senate race erased Mark Walker’s advantage with grassroots Republicans and set up a two-man race for the 2022 nomination with Pat McCrory.

Walker, a former congressman, won a Senate straw poll of party activists conducted over the weekend at the North Carolina Republican Party convention. The staunch conservative romped with 44%, compared to 29% for Budd and 18% for McCrory, the former governor. But after Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, opted against running for the Senate, the former president used his convention keynote to endorse Budd, blocking Walker’s path to victory in the primary.