The day after a series of closely watched elections in Texas, North Carolina and Arkansas, Donald Trump published a seemingly endless series of items to his social media platform, highlighting candidates who won primaries after receiving presidential endorsements. It led him to conclude: “My Endorsements within the Republican Party have been virtually insurmountable! It is such an honor to realize and say that almost everyone I Endorse WINS, and wins by a lot, especially in Texas!”
As it happens, the words “virtually” and “almost” were doing a lot of work in those sentences. The Texas Tribune noted that the president’s backing “isn’t a silver bullet.” From the report:
Trump handed out his endorsement generously ahead of the primary, backing over 130 incumbents and candidates for the Texas Legislature, Congress and statewide office.
While most of his endorsed candidates won their primaries outright Tuesday night, a major one — Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller — was poised to lose reelection. And at least three Trump-endorsed candidates for Congress were headed to runoffs, one of them in a distant second place.
While not a wholesale rejection of Trump’s influence, the results showed that his endorsement cannot solve all a candidate’s problems.
For years, Trump has described a scenario that’s automatic: The president tells GOP primary voters whom to vote for, and they obey his directions. It’s a particular point of pride for the Republican. In September, he boasted during a radio interview: “I do bring a unity to the Republican Party. Do you know, almost every single person I’ve endorsed has won? I can’t think of anyone who hasn’t. If I endorse a person, they win. … With the Republican Party, it’s like, 399-0. Think of that.”
The problem, of course, is that plenty of Trump-backed GOP candidates have fallen short, including in Republican primaries, whether the president can think of them or not.
To be sure, most of the Texas Republicans who received Trump endorsements fared well on Tuesday, but many of them ran literally or effectively unopposed, allowing the president to pad his totals. Some, however, either lost or are poised to lose, despite his public support.
Indeed, while the president has long padded his win-loss record with support for GOP incumbents who have faced little to no opposition, creating an exaggerated picture, plenty of Trump-backed candidates have fallen short in recent years, including in the 2024 cycle.
This is not to say that Trump’s endorsement is irrelevant. There’s ample evidence to the contrary. But to hear the president tell it, the power of his endorsement is supposed to be — indeed, it must be — the stuff of legend.
In 2021, for example, he commented on the Republicans who beg for in-person meetings, where they plead for his electoral support, marveling at his self-professed power. “We have had so many, and so many are coming in,” Trump said. “It’s been pretty amazing. You see the numbers. They need the endorsement. I don’t say this in a braggadocious way, but if they don’t get the endorsement, they don’t win.”
Except, as we’ve seen many times, that’s not true — which should send a message to Republicans everywhere about the need, or lack thereof, to kiss his ring.
GOP officials and candidates are supposed to tremble in fear at the very idea of losing favor with him because his all-powerful endorsement is the key to unlocking electoral success. It’s the kind of thinking that keeps congressional Republicans in line, too afraid of what he’ll do to their careers if they dare to defy him.
But what the party needs to understand is that the myth isn’t true, no matter how many times he pretends otherwise. The more GOP officials and candidates acknowledge that reality, the less they’ll feel the need to sacrifice their dignity to satisfy Trump’s whims.
This post updates our related earlier coverage.
