That being said, Tuesday’s primary election was a historically bad one for candidate Trump.
Three lost, two by large margins.
In South Carolina, Mark Burns, a pastor and Trump supporter who was a speaker at the 2016 Republican National Convention, narrowly lost a primary runoff to nurse Sheri Biggs.
In Colorado, state Republican Party Chairman Dave Williams lost to conservative activist Jeff Crank by more than 30 points.
And perhaps most damaging to Trump, Riverton Mayor Trent Staggs, who was seen as Trump’s preferred candidate in Utah to replace retiring Trump opponent Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), was defeated by the more moderate Rep. John Curtis (R-Utah). Staggs is now trailing by more than 20 points.
According to Ballotpedia’s extensive tally of Trump supporters, it is unprecedented for three Trump-backed candidates to lose in one night.
Other key data points from Ballotpedia:
- Before Tuesday, only eight Trump-backed candidates had lost House or Senate primaries since 2018, and none have lost in 2024. Including gubernatorial races, 12 Trump-backed candidates have lost primaries.
- Eight of his 12 primary losses came in 2022 as the Republican Party seeks a new direction after Trump’s 2020 defeat and the Jan. 6 insurrection. Three of those losses were in gubernatorial primaries and three in Georgia, which held out against Trump more than any other state in the primary.
- The three losses Trump suffered on Tuesday are unprecedented, as all three of his losses in Georgia in 2022 came between the primary and the subsequent primary runoff elections.
- Tuesday’s loss is larger than the losses incurred in all of 2018 or 2020.
Probably shouldn’t read this Too I don’t really care about this. The fact that no Trump-backed candidate had lost before Tuesday suggests that Trump’s support is still valuable. And the three races that took place on Tuesday were: A near perfect situation of overlapping dangers.
Utah is the Republican state that has shown the most willingness to oppose President Trump.
Williams is a highly controversial figure in Colorado. He recently sent an email titled “God Hates Pride,” which has led to calls for him to be removed from his position as state party chairman. (The state party he runs has called for people to burn Pride flags in social media posts.) During his unsuccessful 2022 campaign, he attempted to appear on the ballot as “Dave ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ Williams.” This was rejected, and Williams later lost by double digits to Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.).
This marks Barnes’ third loss, having previously lost in 2018, 2022 and Tuesday’s primary. (The first was a closely contested open primary in which he received less than 3% of the vote.)
But Trump decided to back these candidates for some reason — despite the track records of Barnes and Williams, and the relatively poor organization of Staggs’ campaign — and his endorsement was not enough to make Williams and Staggs competitive.
The Trump campaign did not respond to requests for comment.Other Trump-backed candidates, including Colorado Rep. Gabe Evans (R-Colo.) and several incumbent lawmakers, won tight House primaries on Tuesday, and Trump-backed candidate John Maguire appeared likely to beat Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.) in a closely contested race last week.
Trump posted several images to his Truth Social account on Tuesday night boasting about the actual victories of his candidates, most of whom never actually faced opponents in the primary elections.
