On Tuesday, Arizona senator John McCain defeated his GOP primary challenger Kelli Ward 52 percent to 39 percent, while Florida senator Marco Rubio defeated his GOP primary challenger Carlos Beruff 72 percent to 18 percent. Both Ward and Beruff styled themselves as Trumpist candidates in their races against senators who backed the Trans-Pacific Partnerhsip and were members of the Gang of 8. (“Beruff seeks to exploit Rubio’s tepid Trump position,” read one Politico headline in July.) The mere fact that the incumbents won their primaries isn’t surprising or terribly significant, but the size of their victories is yet another sign that Trumpism is more of a personality cult than a full-fledged movement.
Although McCain’s margin of victory was much smaller than Rubio’s 54-point or Paul Ryan’s 70-point victory, McCain’s share of the primary vote declined only 4 points from 2010, despite the fact that McCain and the 2016 GOP nominee have been antagonizing one another for a year. Trump initially declined to formally endorse McCain and Ryan before begrudgingly reading a statement endorsing both men in early August.
It’s certainly possible that Trump will inspire a generation of Trumpian nationalist, anti-immigration and anti-trade authoritarians who will run and win in the future, but in 2016 Trumpism without Trump has completely flopped.
