PRIMARIES BRING DEFEATS FOR TRUMP’S CANDIDATES
WOODSTOCK, Ga. — Donald Trump opened May by lifting a trailing Senate candidate in Ohio to the Republican nomination. He’s ending the month, however, stinging from a string of defeats that suggest a diminishing stature.
Trump faced a series of setbacks in Tuesday’s primary elections as voters rejected his efforts to unseat two top targets for retribution: Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, and secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, both of whom rebuffed Trump’s pressure to overturn the 2020 election. The magnitude of defeat in the governor’s race — more than 50 percentage points — was especially stunning and raised questions about whether Republican voters are beginning to move on from Trump.
Trump sought to play down the losses, saying on his social media platform Wednesday that he had a “very big and successful evening of political Endorsements” and insisting some races “were not possible to win.”
Still, the pattern of high-profile defeats is hard to ignore.
After JD Vance vaulted from third to first place following Trump’s endorsement in the Ohio Senate primary, the dynamics took a turn. Trump’s pick in Nebraska’s primary for governor, Charles Herbster, lost after allegations surfaced he had groped women.
In Idaho a week later, the governor beat a Trump-backed challenger. And in Pennsylvania, a marquee Senate primary featuring Trump-endorsed celebrity heart surgeon Mehmet Oz remains too close to call.
But his biggest upset was in Georgia, where former Sen. David Perdue, whom Trump had lobbied to run, lost to Kemp. Raffensperger also won his party’s nomination, as did Attorney General Chris Carr and Insurance Commissioner John King, both opposed by Trump.