One of the only positive aspects of Donald Trump’s stranglehold on the Republican Party is that he’s terrible at picking candidates in winnable races. Remember Herschel Walker and Kelly Loeffler in Georgia? How about Doug Mastriano and Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania? The road to Democrats having kept the Senate thus far is lined with Trump’s bungled attempts to play kingmaker.
It’s not only the Senate, though. Of the 36 House races in 2022 that the Cook Political Report deemed most competitive, Trump endorsed candidates in five contests—all of which they lost. Trump’s winning percentage overall in 2022 was quite high, but “the vast majority of those endorsements were of incumbents and heavy favorites to win,” according to The New York Times. Sure, Trump can successfully back a MAGA candidate in a deep red congressional district, but Trumpism has proven poisonous to swing voters.
The good news about Trump is that he never learns from his mistakes when it comes to endorsements. In North Carolina, Trump has more recently gotten behind Mark Robinson, a gubernatorial candidate with a history of antisemitic, Islamophobic, and homophobic comments. The Times called him a “flamethrower,” but he sounds like a bigot. According to the paper, Robinson “condemned “transgenderism” and “homosexuality” as “filth.” Not to mention, as my colleague Bess Levin wrote, “Robinson is a conspiracy theorist to boot, saying, among other things, that he ‘wouldn’t be surprised’ if 9/11 turned out to be an inside job or if the 1969 moon landing had been faked; that he’s ‘SERIOUSLY skeptical’ JFK was assassinated; and that Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg was a paid actor.” Oh, and let’s not forget that Robinson would like to “go back to the America where women couldn’t vote,” which is hardly a way to galvanize women voters in 2024.
Over in Ohio, there’s former Trump critic turned supporter Bernie Moreno, whom the former president helped boost to win the Republican nomination. Ohio is an increasingly red state, and we’ve seen a Trump critic turned loyalist win there before. But Moreno is seen as the weaker general election candidate to face off against Senator Sherrod Brown, with Mike DeWine, Ohio’s Republican governor, and other state party leaders having backed Matt Dolan. Moreno, whose experience is in owning car dealerships rather than politics, hasn’t faced the scrutiny of running in a high-profile Senate race. Shortly before he won the primary, the AP noted noted that “Moreno—who has shifted from a public supporter of LGBTQ rights to a hardline opponent—is confronting questions about the existence of a 2008 profile seeking ‘Men for 1-on-1 sex’ on a casual sexual encounters website called Adult Friend Finder.” Moreno denied creating the account, and a former intern later said he created the posting as a prank.
Meanwhile in Montana, where Republicans are trying to knock out Democratic senator Jon Tester, there’s part-time Senate candidate and full-time CEO of a publicly traded aerospace company Tim Sheehy. Sheehy, a self-styled rancher who similarly lacks any political experience, wants to get rid of the Department of Homeland Security—that is, the department that deals with the border, which Republicans (pretend to) care a lot about. He’d also like to “return health care to pure privatization,” and has absurdly blamed high hospital bills on a “subsidy system that’s got perverse incentives.” As for taxes, Sheehy doesn’t seem too big a fan, having reportedly skipped out on state livestock taxes of his own. And to top things off, the Senate hopeful proudly presents as a self-made multimillionaire—but like you know who, received large investments from both his father and brother. (As a nepo baby myself, I should clarify that it’s not that he’s gotten help; it’s that he’s lied about getting it.)
Donald Trump and Kari Lake during a campaign rally in 2022.
Mario Tama/Getty Images.
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