Weaknesses

Trump just showed his endorsement power again. And his weaknesses.

Bernie Moreno’s victory demonstrated Trump’s sway in Ohio, and set up the likely premier Senate race in November.

By STEVEN SHEPARD, MADISON FERNANDEZ and ZACH MONTELLARO

Donald Trump got his man in the Ohio Senate race — but so did Senate Democrats.

Bernie Moreno’s victory Tuesday in the fractious Republican primary demonstrated the former president’s sway: He helped drag Moreno to a runaway win.

It set up what will likely be the premier and potentially decisive race for control of the Senate between Moreno and vulnerable Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown. But Moreno is also the candidate for whom Democrats pined — one of the party’s top super PACs meddled in the primary to boost Moreno in the final week of the race, viewing him as the easiest to defeat in November.

Moreno’s win capped a strong night for the former president down the ballot: Trump went three-for-three in competitive primaries, boosting Moreno and two other House candidates who won close races.

But there were also warning signs for Trump as hundreds of thousands of Republicans — particularly in suburban areas where the GOP has struggled in the Trump era — chose Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis on the presidential ballot, despite the fact that neither is an active candidate anymore.

Here are five takeaways from Tuesday’s primary results in five states:

Senate battle royale is set

The Brown-Moreno race could very well be the tipping point for control of the Senate. With an almost-certain pickup in West Virginia, Republicans only need to net one more seat to win the chamber outright, and Brown and Sen. Jon Tester of Montana are their top targets.

The Ohio race will likely be the most expensive Senate election of 2024. The parties have already booked $143 million in TV ads for the general election.

Democrats’ decision to meddle in the race underscored Moreno’s perceived weaknesses in a general election, especially compared to the second-place finisher on Tuesday, moderate state Sen. Matt Dolan. But it also emphasized Brown’s vulnerability. While November is a long way away, the political environment in Ohio is unlikely to be as favorable as Brown’s three previous Senate elections: the 2018 midterms that saw an anti-Trump Democratic backlash, the 2012 election sharing the ballot with then-President Barack Obama, or the 2006 Democratic wave.

Still, Democrats are wagering that Moreno’s narrower appeal, lack of political experience and close ties to the former president mean he will suffer the same fate as some of Trump’s 2022 Senate picks, like Blake Masters in Arizona, Herschel Walker in Georgia or Mehmet Oz in neighboring Pennsylvania.

Trump’s good night down ballot

Tuesday demonstrated that Trump’s endorsement remains the most valuable currency in Republican primaries.

In addition to Moreno, Trump helped propel Ohio state Rep. Derek Merrin to the nomination in a swing district in Northwest Ohio. And in Southern Illinois, Trump’s pick, Rep. Mike Bost, appears to have narrowly defeated 2022 gubernatorial nominee Darren Bailey after Bailey conceded the race Tuesday night.

The Illinois race was an interesting test of Trump’s power. In backing Bost, the former president supported a reliable ally of House leadership against an opponent more closely aligned with Trump’s strongest supporters, like Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), who endorsed Bailey.

It was barely enough to keep Bost — who ran up large margins in counties west of Interstate 57 that overlapped with his geographic base — in Congress. But given the narrow margin, it’s clear that Bost would’ve been swept out without Trump’s support.

But there are warning signs for both presidential campaigns

The presidential primaries in five states on Tuesday night were an afterthought at best, coming after Trump and President Joe Biden had already locked up their status as presumptive nominees.

But the results brought now-familiar warnings of discontent for both men.

Trump scored between the mid-70s and low 80s in Tuesday’s primaries, a commanding margin — but one that still showed at least a pocket of Republicans are not yet willing to bend the knee to the former president.

The areas where Trump performed weakest will not be surprising. Take Johnson County, Kansas. The Kansas City suburbs have raced away from Republicans in the Trump era, with Biden in 2020 becoming the first Democrat to win the county in decades. And Trump has under 70 percent of the primary vote there.

Similarly, Trump is at 70 percent in Franklin County, Ohio, home to Columbus and its suburbs. And preliminary results in Maricopa County, Arizona — home to a majority of voters in the burgeoning battleground state — show Trump at 74 percent.

Biden, too, had some weaknesses, albeit not as pronounced as Trump’s. The ballot line for “none of the names shown” hovered at around 10 percent in Kansas. Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) was a little bit higher than that in Ohio, even though he already suspended his campaign, and he could pick up his first delegate to the national convention.

But buyer beware on trying to forecast how these protest votes for either campaign translate to November.

The not-Biden vote in Ohio, for example, overperformed in areas where ancestral Democrats have moved away from the party, even if they have yet to switch their party registration. So, don’t necessarily chalk the result up to anger over Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war. The phenomenon is similar on the Republican side: Trump is struggling to keep affluent suburbanites in the GOP fold.

Challengers flopped

It’s still good to be a congressional incumbent.

Bailey was unable to overtake Bost in one of the most anticipated primaries of the night. It was a major test for rabble-rousers in the Republican Party like Gaetz, the architect of Kevin McCarthy’s ouster from the speakership last year. Gaetz is supporting a handful of conservative challengers to incumbent Republicans this cycle — much to House leadership’s chagrin.

Establishment Republicans have sought to fend off candidates they see as potential troublemakers in the safe-seat GOP primaries, though they’ve had varying success so far. One of the next tests will be during Texas’ runoff elections in May, where Rep. Tony Gonzales is facing off against Brandon Herrera, a firearms manufacturer who runs a pro-gun YouTube channel and has Gaetz’s support.

On the other side of the aisle, Kina Collins, a gun violence prevention advocate who previously fell short of toppling longtime Democratic Rep. Danny Davis in Illinois’ 7th Congressional District, didn’t come close this time around. Collins, who was 7 points shy of defeating Davis in 2022, was part of a crowded field primarying the 14-term incumbent.

She finished in third place behind Chicago city Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin.

Tuesday was a continuation of a losing streak for challengers. In down-ballot Super Tuesday primaries earlier this month, no primary challengers were successful (with the exception of Alabama’s member-on-member primary, where one incumbent was inevitably going to lose).

In Illinois, Democratic Reps. Chuy Garcia, Sean Casten and Bill Foster each faced opponents on Tuesday night as well, none of whom were successful.

Pro-Israel Democrats thrive

A number of Democratic incumbents in Illinois were challenged specifically for their positions on the Israel-Hamas war— and all survived easily, despite polls showing Democrats have become less comfortable with supporting Israel in the months since Hamas’ attack.

Foster and Casten were endorsed by Democratic Majority for Israel, and each beat back challengers who hit them on the war. In Davis’ district, United Democracy Project, the super PAC arm of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, targeted Collins, spending close to $500,000 against her.

The Israel-Hamas war certainly animates some Democrats. But it wasn’t nearly enough for any of the challengers on Tuesday to overcome incumbents’ existing advantages.