Former President Donald Trump is entering a crucial phase of his lordship over the Republican Party, with four primaries in four states poised to decide his fate as a feared power broker.
Candidates Trump has endorsed for governor in Georgia, for the Senate in North Carolina, and for the House in Wyoming, plus his planned endorsement for the Senate in Ohio, hold the keys to the former president’s standing as the undisputed leader of the Republican Party. Losses in any of these key nominating contests would embolden Republican politicians to buck his directives and challenge him for the 2024 presidential nomination should he run.
Losses in all four would be an unmitigated disaster for Trump.
“He has to notch some electoral wins,” John Couvillon, a GOP pollster in Louisiana, said Tuesday, “for him to continue to have Republicans scared to cross him.”
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Perhaps no race looms larger for Trump and his ability to dictate to Republican officials and mold the party in his image than the May 24 GOP gubernatorial primary in Georgia.
Trump’s hand-picked challenger in this contest, former Sen. David Perdue, is losing to incumbent Gov. Brian Kemp. Trump blames Kemp for his loss in Georgia in 2020 to President Joe Biden. Trump’s central political message, whether regarding the 2022 midterm elections or 2024, is that his reelection bid was stolen and that Kemp let it happen. A Kemp victory would discredit both Trump’s message, which he insists matters most to grassroots Republicans, and his influence.
Trump took that message to Georgia Saturday, hosting a campaign rally with the aim of turning the tide for Perdue. “But before we can defeat the Democrats,” Trump told rallygoers, “we first have to defeat the RINO [Republican in name only] sellouts and the losers in the primaries this spring — we have a big primary coming up right here in your state. We’re going to throw out … your RINO governor, Brian Kemp.”
Trump’s chosen candidate is also faltering in the GOP Senate primary in North Carolina, although Rep. Ted Budd’s campaign is highlighting a third-party poll showing the congressman with a lead of 3 percentage points.
Budd was supposed to be a sure thing when Trump endorsed him last June over former Rep. Mark Walker and former Gov. and Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory. But seven weeks before the May 17 primary, McCrory has the upper hand. Party insiders in North Carolina say there is time for Budd to flip the script but that to do so, he must work harder on the campaign trail to appeal for votes.
Trump is in better shape in the Ohio Senate primary and the Wyoming House primary.
The former president has yet to pick a horse for Senate in the Buckeye State. But most contenders are running as Trump devotees, and the longer Trump waits to endorse before the May 3 primary, the less likely his chosen candidate will fall short — unless he backs a Republican trailing in the polls and with minimal resources, which is unlikely. The 45th president confirmed to the Washington Examiner that he plans to endorse in this primary.
In Wyoming, a ruby red, rural state that delivered nearly 70% of its vote to Trump in 2020, the former president can claim some momentum in his bid to oust Republican Rep. Liz Cheney.
Attorney Harriet Hageman, the GOP primary contender Trump endorsed for Wyoming’s lone, at-large congressional seat, enjoys strong establishment support, including from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California. Meanwhile, Cheney’s activities as a member of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th attack on the United States Capitol have irked committed Republican primary voters. Cheney is vowing to prove her doubters wrong and is amassing the resources she will need to do so.
Trump’s power over elected Republicans derives from his strong relationship with GOP voters. Despite being more than a year removed from office, and despite Republicans losing control of the House and Senate on his watch — indeed, despite the circumstances under which Trump exited the White House, he still polls well with Republican voters and would begin the 2024 presidential primary as the overwhelming favorite.
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But if the former president’s standing with the grassroots does not translate into victories for his endorsed candidates in primaries where he has invested an enormous amount of credibility, he would lose the fear factor that has enabled him to silence dissenting GOP voices and scare others into submission. For Trump, troubling signs abound.
In Alabama, his endorsed Senate candidate, Rep. Mo Brooks, was on track to lose in the Republican primary, forcing the former president to yank his backing to avoid an embarrassing defeat in a red state known for being particularly pro-Trump.
A spokesman for Trump did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
