Trump bolsters influence in US state primaries, but sees symbolic defeats

May 27, 2022

Robert

Donald Trump has confronted Brian Kemp twice. In 2020, while still president, he pressured Georgia’s Republican governor to help him rig the election; he did not make it. A year and a half later, he tried to thwart him in the state reelection race; also failed.

Kemp won the state’s republished primary on Tuesday, alongside Brad Raffensperger, who is seeking a new term as secretary of state – in 2020, he received a call from Trump asking to “find” a few thousand votes and reverse his defeat. He didn’t, and the conversation reached the press.

This year, Trump backed former Senator David Perdue in the selective, who defends the false theory that the 2020 election was stolen. The former president engaged in the campaign and donated more than US$ 2 million to the ally, but the efforts were in vain.

The current governor received the endorsement of several other Republicans (including Mike Pence, Trump’s former deputy), spent $5.2 million on TV ads alone, and used the public machine a lot: he gave discounts on fuel taxes and created a new social assistance at the time of voting. He ended up winning with 73% of the vote to Perdue’s 22%.

Although symbolic, the defeat may have been punctual in the former president’s power of influence in the primaries. According to a survey by the Ballotpedia website, he announced support for 16 gubernatorial candidates; in the six states where the vote has already been held, there are three wins (Texas, Arkansas and Pennsylvania) and three losses (Nebraska, Idaho and Georgia).

Trump has also seen allies win 13 Senate races (out of 19 held) and 71 House primaries (out of 72). In all, he announced at least 150 endorsements for the two Houses. Despite not having access to the main social networks, the former president has been going to rallies and posting messages on channels such as Telegram and the Truth Social network, which he belongs to.

The results help gauge Trump’s power over the Republican Party and the extent to which his support attracts or drives voters away, but it’s too early to draw definitive conclusions, as only 12 of the 50 states have had primaries. The process stretches over months until the election itself in November. In the midterms, part of Congress and the command of 36 states will be renewed.

Among so many disputes, attention is focused on the places where parties usually alternate in power. It is the pendulum states, which usually decide the presidential election.

In Pennsylvania, Doug Mastriano won the gubernatorial party primary. He questions the 2020 result and organized caravans to Washington on January 6, 2021, when supporters of the former president stormed Capitol Hill to try to forcibly change the election result. A video shows Mastriano crossing a police checkpoint amid the riot that day.

The primary for the Senate remains undefined this Friday (27), ten days after the vote. With 99% counted, Mehmet Oz, Trump’s name, leads with 31.2%, just 900 votes ahead of David McCormick. By local rules, there will be a recount, to be completed on June 8. One of the reasons for the delay was a series of failures in the printing of ballots, which made it difficult for the machines to read the paper ballot.

The former president used the delay to criticize the American electoral system again. He said the US is becoming a Venezuela and even urged Oz to declare victory before the final result. In the posts, Trump continues with his style of self-promotion. “Dr. Oz seems to be in pretty good shape in Pennsylvania, but REMEMBER I supported him very late. If I had supported him in the beginning, there would have been a big difference!” he posted on Truth Social.

In Texas, ruled by Republicans since 1995, the former president saw 33 of his nominees win, including a symbolic race: Ken Paxton beat George P. Bush in the primary for attorney general. The result reflects the decline of the Bush dynasty, which made two presidents who later became critics of Trump. (George Prescott, 46, is the son of former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and the grandson of former President George HW Bush, who died in 2018.)

Trump’s focus in the primaries is also on secondary executive functions — in several states defined by popular vote. The post of local secretary of state, for example, includes the attribution of organizing elections, since in the country there is no federal body that centralizes the counting and each government certifies the result of its state. Thus, the former president sees it as strategic to have allies in this position, in case he faces a close election again and tries some kind of manipulation. He may run again in the 2024 election.

Support for legislative candidates involves an attempt to weaken the final half of Joe Biden’s government. The midterms will renew the entire House and 34% of the Senate, and Democrats are at risk of losing the narrow majorities they have today — that’s a 12-man advantage in the House and Vice President Kamala Harris’s tie-breaking power in the Senate, where there is 50 names from each party.

In the US electoral system, there are primaries for almost every elected office. For the state Executive, they define the candidates for governor, vice president and attorney general. In the case of the federal legislature, they nominate the candidate for the vacancy of a district: each party appoints one name per district, and whoever wins goes to Congress.

Analysts point out that Trump has had the advantage by supporting many candidates for re-election. In the Chamber, of the 71 victories he adds, 65 are names seeking a new mandate. “Supporting incumbents is not a good measure of the supporter’s power, as historically they win 90% of primaries. Money, well-known name and public services contribute to giving electoral advantages”, analyzed Elaine Kamarck, a researcher at the Brookings Institute, in a recent article.

Another point to measure the former president’s influence is how candidates position themselves on 2020. A Brookings study with 493 Republicans who contested primaries already held showed that 74% do not mention their position on the presidential election, 8% say they believe the claim was stolen and 15% defend further investigations, but consider Biden the legitimate representative.

The survey also points out that 46% of candidates cite the politician’s ideas, even if they have not received his formal support. “So far, Trump and Trumpism are doing well, but there is another Republican Party without Trump that is there, forgotten,” says Kamarck.