Trump-endorsed candidates hold nearly perfect record in GOP primaries
With five months left until the 2026 elections, President Donald Trump holds a near perfect record when it comes to endorsing winning Republican primary candidates.
In only a few cases has his preferred candidate lost this year, demonstrating that even as Trump's nationwide popularity sags he remains the fractured Make America Great Again movement's dominant figure.
A review of Trump's picks by Ballotpedia, a digital encyclopedia of U.S. politics and elections, shows out of 312 primary endorsements the president carries a 98% success rate in GOP contests across congressional, state legislative and statewide elections.
The president bragged about that record when reacting to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani's preferred candidates' recent sweep in three Democratic primaries on June 23 for Congress. On that same day more than a dozen Trump-backed contenders across multiple states prevailed in their Republican primaries.
Among them were first-time candidates such as Anthony Constantino, an upstate New York sticker company CEO and former boxer who beat out Assembly member Robert Smullen, the state GOP's preferred candidate, by about 20 percentage points, for a seat previously held by Rep. Elise Stefanik.
"Congratulations Mr. Mayor," Trump said in a June 24 social media post aimed at Mamdani. "I went 16-0 last night, helping to elect wonderful American patriots, and the media doesn't say a word."
But a closer examination paints a more complicated picture. In six of those 16 elections, Trump backed an incumbent without a primary challenger, such as Rep. Mike Lawler of New York, a moderate who ran unopposed. The president also appears to be counting the South Carolina runoff for governor as two wins after endorsing both candidates in that race.
But Trump's choices have reshaped the Republican Party by crushing veteran conservative lawmaker's careers.
Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, Texas Sen. John Cornyn and Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie have been catapulted out of office this year for having disagreed with Trump at one point or another. He also put his large network's muscle into defeating five of the seven Indiana state legislators who defied him on redrawing the state's congressional maps.
Political observers say Trump wields his influence in ways rarely done by previous presidents, who usually avoided intra-party political battles.
In 2022, when Democrats were facing a resurgent GOP poised to retake Congress, former President Joe Biden endorsed in only five congressional races during that cycle, including backing then-Rep. Kurt Schrader, an Oregon moderate facing a progressive challenger. That opponent, Jamie McLeod-Skinner, won the primary but lost the general election to the Republican nominee, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, that fall.
"There's no modern president whose influence within his party has come anywhere close to that of Donald Trump in terms of both being willing to endorse and then having such success with his endorsements," said Mark P. Jones, a Rice University political science professor.
"It's very difficult for someone to win if Trump has endorsed their opponent," he added. "It's not impossible but in an overwhelming majority of races his endorsed candidate wins, and that's really shaped Republican politics in Congress and even down to the state legislative level."
Races large and small hit president's radar
That Trump takes interest in races for Congress or governor comes as little surprise, but even more uncommon is that he takes interest in down-ballot races too.
In Texas, for instance, the president not only sided with Attorney General Ken Paxton over Cornyn, he also put his finger on the scale for former state Sen. Don Huffines for state comptroller, calling him a "MAGA warrior" and someone who "has been with me from the very beginning," in a February endorsement.
Despite being a former rival of Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott for many years, Huffines easily won the GOP primary with 57% of the vote. Huffines defeated Kelly Hancock, a longtime Abbott ally who the governor appointed to the seat in July.
The White House did not respond to repeated requests for comment
Trump using different methods to keep kingmaker status
One change in the way Trump dominates primaries this time around has been making his preference known much sooner than during the first administration.
An analysis by National Public Radio shows the average Trump primary endorsement came seven weeks before a midterm primary election in 2018. This year, that seal of approval arrives roughly seven months before the contest, often in safe seats where the Republican is unopposed.
In some races, the president has even used his executive power to influence the outcome. In May, Trump endorsed U.S. Rep. Andy Barr in the Republican Kentucky U.S. Senate primary after asking one of Barr's opponents, businessman Nate Morris, to drop out of the race and promising Morris a role in his administration as an ambassador.
These tactics, political observers say, have fortified Trump's standing among conservatives by effectively clearing the field. But in situations where GOP officials and voters appear to be going against his initial choice, such as the June 23 Republican runoff for South Carolina governor, Trump avoided a loss by endorsing both contenders at the last minute.
The administration's conservative allies say Trump is unique among presidents in how closely he keeps a finger on the MAGA base's pulse.
"Trump is setting the agenda for the Republican party at the moment, and that's an agenda that I think the vast majority of Republican voters agree with," said Chip Wyatt, a former aide to Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, who now serves as a lobbyist for Heritage Action, the political advocacy arm of the conservative Heritage Foundation.
Loyalty tests come with a cost in Washington and beyond
The biggest feature of the GOP primary election headlines this year has been Trump explicitly imposing a loyalty test on Republican candidates.
While that will mean fewer mavericks willing to buck Trump in the next Congress, it has led to more resistance from the lame ducks Trump ousted.
In a closed-door June 24 meeting with Senate GOP members, Trump reportedly got into a shouting match with Cassidy over the Iran war.
"Our original objectives have not been achieved," Cassidy told reporters after the meeting. He added Trump, "did not particularly care for my comments" and then "raised his voice."
Trump's success in swaying primaries might breed more loyalty with the base, experts say, but it also forces GOP candidates facing tough general elections to be more wedded to the president and his record.
A PBS News/NPR/Marist poll released June 18 found 80% of Republicans approving of the job Trump is doing versus just 5% of Democrats and 28% of independents.
Similarly, a survey by the American Research Group conducted June 16-20 found that while 67% of Republicans give the president a thumbs up on the way he is handling his job, just 30% of Americans overall say the same.
Among independent voters, the survey found just 25% approve while 69% disapprove of the way Trump is handling his job as president.
The White House dismissed the findings, telling USA TODAY the "ultimate poll" was in 2024.
"Often we would see members of the president's party begin to distance themselves when competing in purple districts or swing states simply because they knew that he was much more of a liability than an asset," Jones said.
"Under the current situation Trump's insistence on near-absolute loyalty has made it very difficult for Republicans in very competitive races where he is underwater in their district or state to distance themselves from the president.
"There's no real way for Republicans to distance themselves from him, so at very least they need to utilize him to motivate his supporters to turn out to vote in an election where he's not on the ballot," Jones said.
Perhaps with that base-mobilization strategy in mind, the Republican National Committee is planning to hold a first-ever midterm convention this summer.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is locked in a closely watched Senate race against Democrat James Talarico after Trump's endorsement helped him vanquish Cornyn, reportedly said during a June 15 tele-hall event that the midterm RNC will be held in Dallas and Trump will be speaking to it.
Democrats see Trump's tightening grip on the GOP as an opportunity for them to tie their opponents to an increasingly unpopular president.
"Each of these Trump-endorsed candidates has pledged their loyalty to a president that has made the lives of our American families that much harder and people are much worse off for Donald Trump's leadership," Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, chair of the Democratic Governors Association, told USA TODAY in an interview.
As the midterms come more into focus, Trump's allies and opponents are jockeying over how toxic his blessing will be in the minds of general-election voters.
Polls show non-MAGA Republicans willing to cross party lines for Democrats in critical contests this year, such as the Ohio Senate battle. A Fox News poll released June 3 found 31% of self-identified non-MAGA Republican voters willing to support former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown over GOP incumbent Jon Husted.
Among the states Democrats are also looking to flip this fall is Nevada, where Gov. Joe Lombardo, who Trump endorsed last year, is in a tough battle against Democratic Attorney General Aaron Ford, whose campaign has been dogged in tying the incumbent to the president in multiple attack ads.
The nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates it as as "toss-up" race in a swing state Trump won by roughly 3 percentage points in 2024. Many of the negative spots intermix Lombardo saying in a TV interview people "need to maybe feel a little pain" in response to the administration's trade war with the president's comments on inflation and rising costs.
"The fact of the matter is Trump and Lombardo are two peas in a pod," Ford told USA TODAY in an interview.
"Nevadans know that this is a race that's between a folder and a fighter, someone who lies down for Trump or someone who stands up – and that's me."
High-profile exceptions
As much as Trump and his allies boast about the power of him endorsing a campaign, there have been notable losses that spotlight a growing friction over Trump within the MAGA movement.
Republican voters in Iowa's gubernatorial primary went with Zach Lahn in a bruising five-person primary over Trump-backed Rep. Randy Feenstra.
In that election, the president made another last-minute entry for the three-term congressman, endorsing Feenstra four days before the election against Lahn, who edged out the win by less 1 percentage point. Lahn ran heavily on an "Iowa First" agenda that was heavily aligned with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr.'s Make America Healthy Again movement.
Trump also came up short in the Georgia gubernatorial primary this year when Lt. Gov. Burt Jones lost to Rick Jackson, a wealthy health care CEO who poured millions into that race.
Even after Georgia voters went with the other candidate, however, Trump still took credit for the outcome.
"Congratulations to Rick Jackson, who very successfully campaigned on being 'TRUMP,' and won," the president said in a June 17 social media post. "He will be your next Governor of Georgia. Can't wait!"
Congressional Republicans and other contenders must show voters they have taken every opportunity to implement his agenda, which they were elected to do, Wyatt, the Heritage lobbyist, told USA TODAY.
"One of the things that's been clear from how President Trump has governed in this term is that he's very much encouraged the GOP in Congress to leave it out on the field to the best of their ability," he said.
Contributing: Fernando Cervantes Jr., Mark Robison, Lucas Aulbach
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump-endorsed candidates hold nearly perfect record in GOP primaries
Reporting by Phillip M. Bailey, USA TODAY / USA TODAY
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This story was originally published June 27, 2026 at 12:01 AM.