Recent blemishes on President Donald Trump’s generally strong Republican primary endorsement track record may be attributable to the L-word: not liberalism, but loyalty.
A few Trump loyalists received coveted presidential endorsements that were not enough to salvage their floundering candidacies.
Sen. Darline Graham Nordone (R-SC) will be the latest candidate to put Trump’s endorsement power to the test in Tuesday’s runoff to replace her late brother as the Republican nominee for a six-year Senate term.
Trump himself cited loyalty as a factor in his unsuccessful endorsements while touting his overall record of helping Republicans across the finish line in their primaries.
“The few that lost were done out of loyalty,” Trump said. “It was almost impossible for them to win but, I felt obligated to go with them because they were, in my opinion, good people!”
Pillow magnate Mike Lindell was Trump’s choice for governor in the Minnesota GOP primary. Lindell has fervently backed the president and repeatedly denied Trump lost the 2020 election. But Lindell was always a stretch electorally, and he lost.
Trump endorsed the 33-year-old former administration official Catalina Lauf in the primary to succeed Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL), who successfully ran for the GOP gubernatorial nomination (also with Trump’s endorsement). Lauf, similar to several other candidates in the carpetbagger-filled race, wasn’t from Florida and had run for office in another state in the not-too-distant past. She lost the primary.
Reps. Cory Mills (R-FL) and Andy Ogles (R-TN) both had Trump’s endorsement for reelection. They both lost their primaries.
Trump’s endorsed candidates for governor in Wyoming, South Carolina, Georgia, and Iowa all lost their primaries, although he altered his Palmetto State endorsement to include both runoff candidates.
Now, Trump is going all in on the late Sen. Lindsey Graham’s sister in South Carolina, even as she has committed gaffes befitting her status as a political neophyte. She has especially been light on national-security and foreign-policy details, in sharp contrast to her brother.
The late senator was a close friend and ally of Trump, who encouraged his sister not to just be a placeholder for the remainder of Lindsey Graham’s term but to actually seek a full six-year Senate term this year. She finished first in the initial round of voting and now faces Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) in Tuesday’s runoff.
Trump has prevailed in 96% to 97% of the Republican primaries where he has endorsed this year, with only about a dozen of his preferred candidates losing. But his endorsements vary wildly. Sometimes, he simply throws his weight behind the candidate who is already most likely to win. In other primaries, he follows the base, such as when he endorsed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton over incumbent Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX). And in other primaries, he spends significant political capital trying to defeat intraparty foes, as was the case with Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) this year.
Some Trump endorsements come with rallies and repeated stops along the campaign trail. Others are limited to stray Truth Social posts.
Loyalty was the buzzword when Trump looked to staff his second administration after winning back the White House in the 2024 election. He stocked his Cabinet and staff with strong public supporters.
But loyalty has been a bit more of a two-way street in Trump’s second term. High-profile firings have been fewer, and officials who have been let go have generally been released from their duties far more gently than members of his turnover-prone first-term team. These appointees have often been given other jobs within the administration, such as when former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was named special envoy for the Shield of the Americas and former Attorney General Pam Bondi was appointed to a seat on the Presidential Council of Advisers on Science and Technology.
Trump’s biggest second-term feud with an erstwhile ally, businessman and former DOGE chief Elon Musk, has been largely resolved, even if the two are not quite as close as they were after the election and at the beginning of 2025.
When Secretary of War Pete Hegseth faced renewed bipartisan scrutiny, Trump defended him. “The Fake News, as usual, is spreading false and completely unfounded rumors,” he wrote in a post on Truth Social. “I am extremely happy with the job that Pete Hegseth is doing.”
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“I think he’s actually one of my best,” Trump told NBC News earlier this month. “I’m very good at this stuff. Smart guy. He’s very much into it. Respected by the military.”
That’s not to say things haven’t ended badly at times for Republicans trying to curry favor with Trump, even during this term. But he has repaid loyalty more often, in some cases at the expense of a perfect primary endorsement record.