The Purge That Boomeranged, Aug 19

Rachel"Almost every single person I've endorsed has won. I can't think of anyone who hasn't." That's Trump this year.

JordynThree hundred and ninety-nine to zero, he's used that exact number.

RachelCalled it virtually insurmountable.

JordynExcept The Washington Post counted today, ten Trump-backed candidates lost their twenty-twenty-six primaries.

RachelTen. Not almost none, ten.

JordynWelcome back to Red Flag.

RachelFull receipt check today on the loyalty test strategy we've tracked all year.

JordynWe'll figure out if it's really ten losses or twelve, depending on whose tally you trust.

RachelAnd go back to the spring, Cassidy, Cornyn, Massie, all purged before this losing streak even started.

JordynSo did the loyalty test break itself before November got here?

RachelPlus, Michigan's Amir Hassan, beaten by a guy who'd already suspended his campaign.

JordynYou can't make that up.

RachelAnd we're admitting CNN might have called this right, the Lame Duck read we doubted back in spring.

JordynThe fiscal audit's coming too. That ninety-six percent win rate has some padding baked in.

RachelGreening. So let's start where the President started.

JordynBragging.

RachelExactly. Now, the numbers that don't back it up. Almost one hundred percent. This is a record, right? Three ninety-nine and O. That's Trump last September about his own endorsement record.

JordynBold stat for a guy who also thinks he won twenty-twenty.

RachelRight. And by March, he's calling his endorsement virtually insurmountable. Insurmountable, Jordyn.

JordynSo what's the actual number now?

RachelTen. Ten Trump-endorsed candidates have lost their twenty-twenty-six primaries.

JordynTen?

RachelOut of the guy who invented 3.99 and O? Ten. And Deseret News reported today that's nearly tying his worst cycle ever, twenty-twenty-two.

JordynWait, worse than the midterms, where half his picks flamed out in general elections?

RachelAlmost as bad, and this week made it worse. The Washington Post reported today three more losses just landed.

JordynWhere?

RachelWyoming, plus two Florida congressional districts.

JordynWow! Okay, hold on. Wyoming is deep red state. That shouldn't be close.

RachelIt wasn't close in the way you'd want. CNN reported almost two hundred thousand people turned out Tuesday, and only twenty-eight percent voted the way Trump told them to.

JordynTwenty-eight percent? That's not an endorsement bump. That's an endorsement penalty.

RachelThis isn't a gotcha, though. I've been keeping this scoreboard all year. That's the actual point of tonight.

JordynRight, because endorsement is supposed to be a purchase. You buy turnout, you buy loyalty.

RachelAnd the question I'm actually auditing is: what did that three ninety-nine and O number buy him versus what's showing up on election night?

JordynBecause if the answer is not much, that changes what a no vote even costs a Republican right now.

RachelSo let's pull it apart, office by office, and by when in the cycle these losses actually landed. Because I have a hunch this isn't spread evenly across the year. Let's break down exactly where these ten losses landed.

JordynPlease, give me the play-by-play.

RachelDeseret's breakdown, five governor primaries, four House seats, one attorney general race.

JordynMm-hmm.

RachelA full ballot, not one weird night.

JordynOh, that's spread across every level of the ballot.

RachelAnd it's not spread evenly across the calendar. Six of the ten happened in the last two weeks.

JordynWait, six in two weeks? So this is a late cycle collapse, not a slow bleed.

RachelExactly. CNN Politics framed it this way: ten losses now equals the combined total from twenty eighteen, twenty twenty and twenty twenty-four put together.

JordynOkay, but the record's still twelve from twenty twenty-two, so we're not at the ceiling yet, technically.

RachelNot officially, but-

JordynThe Washington Examiner already counted twelve as of Tuesday, not ten.

RachelTwelve?

JordynWow!

RachelThat ties the record right now, today.

JordynDepends whose spreadsheet you trust. Same ten races, different definition of what counts as a real endorsement.

RachelSo even the box score is contested before we even get to why?

JordynAnd Wednesday morning's about to add one more wrinkle to that math. Nearly three hundred thousand people showed up Tuesday in Wyoming and those two Florida districts. CNN had that number this morning.

RachelAnd that's the crowd that only gave Trump a twenty-eight percent hit rate. Callback to our Cold Open, not repeating the math.

JordynFine, no new arithmetic, but here's the fresh part. Wednesday-

RachelMm-hmm.

JordynTrump posted about Cory Mills.

RachelThe scandal congressman?

JordynThe scandal congressman. Trump says he privately told Mills to drop out, then endorsed the winner, Ryan Elijah, the second Mills lost.

RachelConvenient timing.

JordynCompare that to spring, when beating Massie got a victory lap, not a distancing act.

RachelSo win, take credit, lose, take distance.

JordynBasically. Endorse everybody eventually, endorse late when it's risky, then endorse whoever survived the primary. The win rate handles itself.

RachelSo a ninety-six percent record gets a lot easier when you're quietly hedging both horses.

JordynExactly. It's not really forecasting anymore. It's just paperwork after the fact.

RachelWhich raises the real question for November: Does a no vote against Trump even cost you anything now?

JordynWe're about to find out, because next up is Kentucky's fourth district, and that Massie race makes tonight's numbers look cheap.

RachelShifting gears, let's talk money. Kentucky's fourth cost $32 million for one House seat.

JordynWow!

RachelFor a primary. NOTUS called it the most expensive House race in history, and Massie still lost nine points to Ed Gallrein, a former Navy SEAL, according to NPR's May count.

JordynAnd Yahoo! News found AIPAC's Super PAC and allied groups poured over $15.8 million into beating him alone.

Rachel$15 million against one guy who voted no on a tax bill over debt? That's not persuasion, that's overkill.

JordynIt wasn't just the dead vote. He pushed the Epstein Files Transparency Act. He opposed the Iran strikes.

RachelThree votes, $15 million. I've seen startups burn less cash going under.

JordynSure, but startups don't land on Meet the Press. Massie told NBC splitting from Trump was worth it.

RachelWorth your seat?

JordynHe said the party's going to be, quote, "very vulnerable" in the midterms. That's not a man licking wounds.

RachelOr it's a man rationalizing after 15 million buried him. Principled and stubborn aren't opposites, Jordan.

JordynFair, but he wasn't alone. One of three incumbents cleared out this spring.

RachelRight. Three purges in May, zero wins in August. Someone paid a fortune for a bench that's still shrinking.

JordynTwo other names fell the same way that spring.

RachelLet's see what the party actually bought with all three. Building on that purge, Massie wasn't the only one in May.

JordynRight. Political Wire ran that New York Times line. Cassidy and Cornyn went down the same spring. Same Trump-backed hammer.

RachelThree incumbents, same machine, same season. That's not attrition, that's a demonstration.

JordynA flex. Cross me, get replaced.

RachelSo here's my question. If loyalty was the product, what did three purged incumbents actually buy the party?

JordynNothing, apparently, not in August.

RachelExactly. The same operation that cleared Cassidy, Cornyn, and Massie in spring is now losing races it should own outright.

JordynMm-hmm. Clearing your own bench is easy. Winning outside it is the actual test.

RachelAnd they're failing the actual test.

JordynOkay, real talk. That's a brand that can reformulate but can't sell the reformulation.

RachelSure, if the reformulation also lost to a guy who already quit the race.

JordynWait, somebody lost to a candidate who dropped out?

RachelOh, you're gonna wanna hear this one. Building on that string of losses, let's talk about the number Trump still touts, 96%.

Jordyn96 after everything we just laid out?

RachelYeah. Ballotpedia's got him at 96% for this cycle, but Deseret's August 19th piece flags the catch. Most of those wins came in races where his pick ran unopposed.

JordynSo the denominator's doing a lot of work.

RachelExactly. Ballotpedia tracked 305 endorsements across his entire first term. This cycle alone? 312, maybe 313.

JordynWow!

RachelSame win rate, way more volume.

JordynSo it's the same number, just whiter math.

RachelRight. It's a padded KPI, like a sales team that hits quota by counting renewals nobody fought for.

JordynOh, I've seen that spreadsheet.

RachelCNN Politics has the real number, though. In gubernatorial primaries where he wasn't just backing the incumbent, he's lost 42%, five out of 12.

JordynFive out of 12? That's basically a coin flip.

RachelThat's the number that matters. A 96% win rate on uncontested races-

JordynRight

Rachel... isn't a record, it's a vanity metric.

JordynSo strip out the freebies, and he's losing real fights nearly half the time.

RachelAre Republican voters still listening to him at all? Friendly fire time. Jordan, I owe CNN an apology.

JordynOuch. Which one?

RachelBack in the spring, I scoffed at the lame duck read. CNN's calling it early this cycle.

JordynAnd it's holding up. Their polling has GOP and GOP-leaning independents registering discontent 30, 40, even 50%-

RachelMm-hmm

Jordyn... on core issues.

RachelHalf the base grumbling? That's not fringe noise.

JordynHistorian Matthew Dallek told the Politics Examiner plainly-

RachelMm-hmm

Jordyn... there are races where Trump simply does not have the juice.

RachelAnd nine of those 10 losses landed in a three-week stretch-

JordynWow

Rachel... right through the Iran war and inflation still biting.

JordynSo the timing wasn't random. Voters were mad about something specific.

RachelWe wanted to believe endorsements still move numbers. The receipts say otherwise.

JordynWhich brings us to the real question for November, is a no vote survivable anymore, or does dissent just get you primaried out?

RachelWatch whoever votes against leadership next. If nobody does, we already have the answer.

JordynSpeaking of nobody daring to dissent, Massie's about to become the test case.

RachelBuilding on that survivability question, Massie called this before it even happened.

JordynWhat'd he say?

RachelNOTUS reported he framed his own race as a test of whether the executive branch controls the legislative branch.

JordynAnd Yahoo! News quoted him predicting the threats would backfire tremendously.

RachelWell, they didn't.

JordynNope.

RachelAnd now the loudest no vote in the House is gone. So what's left for the next guy attempted to buck a bill?

JordynBasically zero. I mean, if Massie couldn't survive it after everything thrown at him, nobody's risking their seat on principle.

RachelI'll say it plain, a party that treats one no vote as disqualifying has no way to correct itself when it's wrong.

JordynOr it means primary voters actually agreed with Trump on Israel funding. Voters chose that outcome.

RachelSure, but they're choosing to never hear the dissenting argument again.

JordynThat's a real cost, even a Democratic one.

RachelAnd we don't get to measure it until November.

JordynSo the next test comes in November, whether purged Republicans hold their seats once it's not just MAGA voters in the room.

RachelPrimaries are basically over. November's the real test now.

JordynRight. Can Republicans in these purged districts actually hold their seats without Trump on the ballot?

RachelAnd CNN Politics flagged something worth watching. A Trump-backed Senate primary loss this cycle would only be the fourth ever.

JordynEver? After Luther Strange, Evan Jenkins, Trent Staggs?

RachelThat's the whole list. Tiny club, about to get a new member.

JordynOne thing I'm tracking, does his team start endorsing whoever beats his own guy just to keep that inflated win rate propped up?

RachelPadding the stat after the loss already happened?

JordynExactly. That tells you whether this was ever about loyalty or just the scoreboard.

RachelSo does a no vote survive the general? November answers that.

JordynWe'll be watching every district.

RachelOkay, so if you take one thing from today, Trump's win rate stat is only as strong as the math behind it.

JordynMm-hmm. Padded by uncontested races. That Massie seat still stings though. Thirty-two million dollars just to remove one no vote?

RachelAnd AIPAC got a receipt too, not just Trump.

JordynFair, but dissent's the real casualty here.

RachelWhich is exactly why I'm tracking November. Purged districts are the actual test.

JordynRight. Not the endorsement tweet, the ballot.

RachelLook at us, agreeing on something.

JordynDon't get used to it.

RachelIf this one made you think, send it to that relative who's been biting their tongue at dinner.

JordynSubscribe wherever you're listening, and leave us a rating. It genuinely helps politically homeless people find this show.

RachelThanks for spending your time with us.

JordynWe'll see you next episode.

RachelAnd as always, stay skeptical.