Donald Trump just suffered a one-two punch
One of the biggest storylines of the 2022 midterm season thus far has been that Donald Trump’s endorsements keep falling flat – even among Republican voters. Trump barely moved the needle for JD Vance, and that was his best showing. Mehmet Oz dropped two points after Trump endorsed him. Trump’s candidates in Nebraska, Idaho, and elsewhere lost badly. But last night Trump suffered his two most humiliating defeats thus far.
Trump’s candidate David Perdue insisted yesterday that in spite of recent polling, there was no way he’d lose the Republican primary race for Governor of Georgia by thirty points. He was right – he lost by more than fifty points to his fellow Republican Brian Kemp. In a high profile race, that’s almost difficult to pull off. Perdue was only down half that much when Trump endorsed him. Not only are Trump’s endorsements failing to give candidates a bump, they’re often finishing in worse shape than they had been when Trump first endorsed them. But this was only the half of it.
Trump’s candidate for Georgia Secretly of State, Jody Hice, gave up his U.S. House seat in order to run. But in spite of Trump’s endorsement – or at this rate perhaps because of it – Hice lost by eighteen points to his fellow Republican Brad Raffensperger. That’s the same Brad Raffensperger who famously rejected Trump’s idiotic plan to steal the 2020 election in Georgia. In other words, the Republican who’s been at war with Trump for the past year and a half won in a blowout over the Republican who was endorsed by Trump.
What we’re seeing, over and over again this primary season, is that Trump has become too irrelevant to move the needle for anyone – even within the Republican base. Up to now, nearly all major news outlets had been incorrectly insisting that Trump’s 2022 primary season endorsements were dominating the landscape, even as the opposite has been playing out. As of last night’s full scale meltdown, we’ll see how many news outlets now acknowledge that Trump is indeed washed up.
