Trump-Endorsed Candidates Falter in Midterms: General-Election Win Rate Falls to 67%
Three days after the midterm elections, President Donald Trump's endorsement record has become a flashpoint inside the Republican Party. According to Ballotpedia, 96% of the candidates Trump backed in Republican primaries this year won their primaries. In the general election, however, his endorsement success rate fell to 67%, down from 89% two years ago and 79% in 2020.
The Senate was the worst of it. Only half of the 26 Senate candidates Trump endorsed won their races, even though all but two of those contests took place in states the president had won in 2024. Chief among them was Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who lost to Democratic state Rep. James Talarico by 12 percentage points in a state Trump had won by almost the same margin two years earlier. Trump ignored pleas from Senate leaders and campaign advisers to stick with incumbent Sen. John Cornyn, who had safely won re-election by double-digit margins before. Conservative commentator Glenn Beck called it "the worst campaign I've ever seen anybody run."
In South Carolina, the president favored political novice Darline Graham over more experienced candidates, and she lost as well. Zachary Albert, a political science professor at Brandeis University, said that in a year when voters were anxious about the economy, the war and corruption, selecting candidates for loyalty to Trump "can cut against them" in a general election.
The House was no better: 46 Trump-backed House candidates have lost, with more races still pending. Among them was Rep. Max Miller of Ohio, who lost to Democrat Brian Poindexter by 9 percentage points. Governors' races were equally bleak: just nine of the 23 gubernatorial candidates Trump backed won, including Ohio Republican Vivek Ramaswamy, who lost by 8 points to Democrat Amy Acton. About 75% of Americans will now live in states with Democratic governors.
USA TODAY noted that Democrats flipped more than 40 House seats, seven Senate seats, five governors' mansions and about a dozen state legislative chambers. Exit polls showed 15% of non-MAGA Republicans breaking for Democrats. The White House did not respond to USA TODAY's request for comment on whether the president regretted backing some candidates against party leaders' advice.
Source: USA TODAY
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：特朗普总统在白宫椭圆形办公室（白宫官方照片，公共领域）。President Trump in the Oval Office. (The White House, public domain)
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