Tuesday Primaries Confirm Trump’s Hold Over The Republican Party

President Donald Trump has a drastically low approval rating and is losing support across his key bases nationally. Despite leading his party to what, on paper, looks like a loss in the midterms, Tuesday’s primaries confirmed that Trump still holds a firm grip on the Republican Party in deep Red states. 

Trump has spent most of his second term getting retribution against his political enemies as opposed to doing anything that would actually help his voters and the American public at large. Apparently, Republican voters are entirely OK with paying higher gas prices as long as they *checks notes* can vote out a guy who voted alongside Republicans the majority of the time. 

The Washington Post reports that Rep. Thomas Massie lost his bid for reelection in what was the most expensive House primary race in history. According to Politico, AIPAC and several other pro-Israel lobbying groups spent $32 million in an effort to prop up Ed Gallrein, a retired Navy SEAL endorsed by Trump.

Massie is the latest incumbent to face Trump’s wrath in the primaries. Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, who voted for Trump’s impeachment in the wake of the Jan. 6 insurrection, lost his reelection bid last week. On the state level, several Indiana state Senators lost their reelection bids after voting against Trump’s redistricting push. 

The Indiana situation is absurd because redistricting was unpopular among Indiana voters. So you can do exactly what your constituents want, but if Trump doesn’t like it, they’ll still vote against you. Make it make sense, y’all.

The implications of these losses were not lost on Republican legislators. “This is @realdonaldtrump’s Republican Party,” Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.) wrote on X. “The rest of us get the privilege of living in it.”

Alabama proved to be yet another instance of Republicans willfully disenfranchising Black voters in their pursuit of racist redistricting efforts. The Alabama state legislature passed legislation allowing Gov. Kay Ivey to delay the state’s primary elections to August as a result of the Supreme Court clearing the path for Alabama to use a racially gerrymandered map. They passed the legislation despite early voting already being underway, which has led to 100,000 votes being voided. 

What makes the situation even more cruel is that primaries were still allowed to continue in Alabama’s safely Red districts. So now we’re in an era where courts and state legislatures get to pick and choose who gets to participate in our democracy. 

I don’t know what needs to be done to establish an independent, federal redistricting committee, but something has to be done, as it’s clear state legislatures cannot be trusted to implement fair congressional maps. But that’s a story for another day. 

In some good news, former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms handily secured the Democratic nomination for Georgia governor. Despite the crowded field, Bottoms secured over 50% of the vote, giving her a head start in her campaign against her potential Republican opponent. Bottoms will face either the Trump-endorsed Lt. Gov. Burt Jones or health care executive Rick Jackson, who has poured millions of his own money into the race.

Current Gov. Brian Kemp is term-limited, and with Trump’s alleged unpopularity, there’s a chance for Bottoms to be the first Democrat to take Georgia’s governor’s office in nearly 25 years. 

The story of the primaries has been Trump’s continued stranglehold on the GOP, despite doing nothing that he promised to do and actually exacerbating the ongoing affordability crisis. So while all polling shows that Trump is unpopular nationwide, it remains to be seen if that unpopularity actually translates to the voting booth. 

SEE ALSO:

Keisha Lance Bottoms Wins Her Primary — What Does It Mean for Her Georgia Governor’s Race?

Trump’s DOJ Sets Up Reparations Fund For Jan 6 Rioters