President Donald Trump’s role as a kingmaker for the Republican Party hit a snag this week as two of his preferred candidates in primary races were defeated, including Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN), bringing his loss total to six for the cycle.
Trump, however, shrugged off the recent string of losses, suggesting neither stood a chance to win even with his backing.
Ogles lost the primary race on Thursday to Charlie Hatcher, Tennessee’s former agricultural commissioner, who was backed by establishment Republicans, including Gov. Bill Lee.
The Tennessee congressman had a history of controversial remarks, including claiming that Muslims are not welcome in American society and calling for the deportation of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, as well as stripping him of citizenship.
Trump also suffered a separate embarrassing loss this week after Amir Hassan lost the Republican primary for Michigan’s 8th Congressional District to Thomas J. Smith, a salsa mogul who had ended his campaign a month prior.
So far this midterm cycle, at least six Trump-backed candidates in statewide or federal races have lost their primaries. This figure is higher than his record in 2024, when four of his endorsees lost their primaries, and in 2020, when four candidates also lost their primaries.
Lt. Gov. Burt Jones (R-GA), a Trump endorsee, lost the Georgia GOP gubernatorial primary to billionaire Rick Jackson in June. That same month, the MAHA-backed businessman Zach Lahn defeated Rep. Randy Feenstra (R-IA), whom Trump backed, in the Iowa GOP gubernatorial primary, and Trump’s pick in the GOP primary runoff for South Carolina governor, Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, lost a runoff to state Attorney General Alan Wilson, though Trump co-endorsed Wilson shortly before the runoff. In March, Nate Sheets defeated Sid Miller, the incumbent Texas agriculture commissioner, in the Republican primary.
Trump, however, downplayed the recent losses in a social media post on Friday, claiming Ogles was a flawed candidate.
“Last night was another good night for Endorsements, 8-1, and the 1 was a person who I remained loyal to even though he had virtually no chance of winning, and was running against a Great ‘Trump’ Candidate, and former Agricultural Commissioner of Tennessee, named Charlie Hatcher,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Good luck Charlie! Run tough and hard. You have my Complete and Total Endorsement!”
The day after the Michigan primary, Trump dismissed Hassan’s loss as an “outlier” in his track record of successes.
“You had a big election last night, and a lot of people running, and I endorsed a lot of candidates,” Trump said while speaking in Las Vegas. “And the end result, I was 28 wins and one loss.”
“It was a little bit of a person that I thought was a good person, didn’t have much of a chance,” Trump said of Hassan. “But I said, ‘I don’t care. I’m doing it anyway.’ Good person, very good, very respected, but nobody knew who the person was.”
Christopher Nicholas, a veteran Republican political consultant, also pointed to Ogles’s weaknesses as a key reason for his loss and not a reflection of Trump’s power among the GOP base.
“That dolt in Tennessee would have lost by a bigger margin had the president not endorsed him,” said Nicholas. “He could not raise money, which is odd for, you know, a several-term incumbent. He seemed to spend most of his time going out of his way to insult all different groups of people.”
But there are warning signs that Trump’s grip may be slightly dipping over the GOP despite his work ousting Rep. Thomas Massie (KY), Sen. Bill Cassidy (LA), and Sen. John Cornyn (TX) in their primaries.
“There are clearly some races where Trump just does not have the juice,” said Matthew Dallek, a political historian at George Washington University. “He doesn’t have the cachet to pull his candidate over the finish line.”
Feenstra, the Iowa Republican, could not overcome the support that Lahn received from the Make America Healthy Again movement, a burgeoning political movement aligned with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Nicholas suggested that Hassan, the Michigan candidate, may have been plagued by having a foreign-sounding name that contributed to his loss.
But Trump’s work to push out congressional lawmakers who have sparked his ire, such as Cornyn, Massie, and Cassidy, also points to his continued dominance.
In a recent interview, Trump made it clear that while he had won his election in 2024, voters were frustrated with Republican lawmakers, not him.
“A lot of them are very angry at Republicans to be very honest with you,” Trump told Punchbowl News. “I mean they’re angry at Republicans but they’re not angry with me.”
A CNN poll released late last month showed 78% of Republicans approved of his job as president, while 22% disapproved, a stark improvement from the 34% who approved and 66% who disapproved. But concerns about the war in Iran and the subsequent rise in gas prices have hampered Trump’s second administration.
An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll also released late last month showed 61% of Republicans said the Iran war was worth fighting, while 37% said it wasn’t worth fighting. Only 33% of Americans overall said the war was worth it, while 64% said it wasn’t. The public has also been less concerned about Trump’s other priorities, including the renovation of the East Wing ballroom or his fixation on passing the SAVE America Act, an election-integrity bill.
“I think that there’s a real disquiet within the Republican Party about how Trump has performed, especially over the last, I would say year, year-plus,” said Dallek. “I think he’s politically vulnerable.”
TRUMP-BACKED ANDY OGLES LOSES GOP PRIMARY FOR TENNESSEE HOUSE SEAT
Trump’s primary losses could also just be a sign of the public being less concerned about political endorsements. Democrats have also seen incumbent leaders backed by the establishment taken down in their primaries by an insurgent socialist movement. Six Democratic House members have been ousted this cycle, while at least two Republican House members and two Republican Senate members have lost their primaries.
“Endorsements from higher-ups in the political ecosystem, I think they can be very important for insider networking and fundraising,” said Nicholas. “But their utility with rank-and-file voters is waning.”