Trump’s GOP kingmaker power faces new test after string of primary losses

Cory Mills losing in Florida is not exactly a shock to anyone who followed his last two years in Congress. The endorsement didn't fail because Trump's brand is fading, it failed because Republican primary voters in that district looked at the actual candidate on the ballot and decided they'd rather not deal with the baggage. That's not a kingmaker problem. That's voters doing their job.

The instinct in every one of these stories is to turn three losses into a referendum on Trump's grip over the party, as if an endorsement was ever supposed to be a magic wand instead of a thumb on the scale. It helps candidates who are already viable. It doesn't resurrect ones who've made themselves easy to vote against, and it never has. Catalina Lauf and Megan Degenfelder ran their own races against their own opponents for their own reasons, and lumping them together with Mills mostly serves the narrative, not the facts.

What actually matters here is whether the eventual nominees can win in November, not whether Mar-a-Lago's win rate ticks down a few points in August. Primary voters sorting out a flawed incumbent or picking a stronger statewide candidate is the system working, not a crack in anyone's authority. If anything, a party that occasionally tells its own president's pick no is healthier than one that rubber-stamps everything hoping to stay in his good graces.

We'd rather see Republicans nominate people who can actually hold the seat than people who simply held the right hand at the right rally. That's the test that counts, and it's the one the party press keeps skipping past to write the kingmaker story instead.