Trump endorsement record notches more primary wins, with a catch

Former President Donald Trump took a victory lap Wednesday following the previous night’s primaries in Kansas, Missouri, Michigan, and Washington state.

“A BIG NIGHT IN AMERICA. I was 24 for 24 in Endorsements, with numerous candidates that won being long shots,” he posted on Truth Social. “Very happy! Congratulations to All, do a great job for America!”

But Trump’s claim he had a clean sweep comes with a major asterisk: In some races, he endorsed multiple candidates.

The strategy allowed the GOP presidential nominee to hedge his bets and limit the chances of adding losses to the board. But it could diminish his own influence among voters by simply betting on all the most popular contenders.

While it’s not a new tactic for Trump, he’s increasingly leaned into it this cycle. He endorsed Eric Greitens and Eric Schmitt for a Missouri Senate seat in the 2022 midterm elections. Schmitt went on to win the primary and the general, and he remains a loyal ally on Capitol Hill.

In a House primary race last week, Trump endorsed Blake Masters after having already backed Abe Hamadeh for Arizona’s 8th Congressional District. His first choice, Hamadeh, won with about 30% to Masters’s nearly 26%.

For Missouri’s gubernatorial race Tuesday, Trump endorsed all three leading candidates: Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe, Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, and state Sen. Bill Eigel.

“Choose any one of them,” Trump posted on Truth Social last month. “You can’t go wrong!”

Kehoe won with a little more than 39%, compared to Eigel’s nearly 33% and Ashcroft’s roughly 23%.

For the state’s attorney general, Trump endorsed Andrew Bailey and Will Scharf. Bailey, the incumbent, won with 63% to Scharf’s 37%.

He again pulled a similar maneuver for Washington’s 4th Congressional District in a bid to oust Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-WA), one of just two House Republicans left who voted to impeach him. Trump first endorsed former NASCAR driver Jerrod Sessler, followed by a last-minute seal of approval for Tiffany Smiley, who lost a 2022 Senate race.

As of Wednesday, the race remained too close to call. With less than 55% of the vote counted, Sessler led with almost 30%, Newhouse was at 25%, and Smiley was at 19.5%. Due to the state’s open primary process, the top two trump-backed-kelly-tshibaka-leads-alaska-senate-race-lisa-murkowski-losing-in-reelection-bid/” title=”Exclusive — Poll: Trump-Backed Kelly Tshibaka Leads Alaska Senate Race, Lisa Murkowski Losing in Reelection Bid”>vote-getters advance to the general election regardless of party. Sessler and Newhouse were on track to advance.  

Trump successfully picked all the victors in the rest of the races where he only chose one candidate, the highest profile of which was the GOP primary for Michigan’s battleground Senate seat.

Although the outcome was expected, Trump-backed former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-MI) won with more than 63% of the vote and will face Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) in the general election.

Trump has endorsed hundreds of Republican candidates up and down the ballot this cycle and so far has a primary success rate of 81%, according to a running tally from Ballotpedia. But he’s faced a few stinging losses along the way.

Among those were races earlier this summer. In the Utah Senate race to succeed Trump-antagonist and retiring Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT), Trump-backed Riverton Mayor Trent Staggs lost out to Rep. John Curtis (R-Utah). That same evening, Trump-favored candidates for House seats in South Carolina and Colorado also lost to other GOP opponents.