Morning Digest: Trump issues his most bizarre endorsement yet

And it's all designed to save a red seat Republicans shouldn't be sweating in the first place

Leading Off

Colorado Rep. Jeff Hurd (R), center (credit: Jeff Hurd Facebook)

CO-03

Donald Trump executed a bizarre reverse-reversal on Friday when he re-endorsed Rep. Jeff Hurd just four weeks after urging primary voters to deny the Colorado Republican a second term.

Hurd, Trump declared on Truth Social, “will do a fantastic job as your Congressman, including Growing the Economy, Cutting Taxes and Regulations, Promoting MADE IN THE U.S.A.,” and a long list of other things (click through if you must).

“Congratulations to Jeff Hurd and, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” he signed off.

Trump’s litany could have been copied and pasted almost verbatim from a post he issued in late October, in which he praised Hurd for advancing nearly the exact same set of priorities while asking voters to send him back to Congress.

In between, though, Trump made a jarring U-turn that threatened to deal Hurd’s brief congressional career a fatal blow.

Late last month, Trump announced that he was pulling his endorsement from “RINO Congressman Jeff Hurd,” citing his alleged “lack of support, in particular for the unbelievably successful TARIFFS imposed on Foreign Countries and Companies which has made America Richer, Stronger, Bigger, and Better than ever before.”

“Congressman Hurd is one of a small number of Legislators who have let me and our Country down,” he went on. “He is more interested in protecting Foreign Countries that have been ripping us off for decades than he is the United States of America.”

Instead, Trump exhorted Republican voters to back Hope Scheppelman, a Navy veteran and former official with the state GOP, saying she had his proverbial “Complete and Total Endorsement.”

Now, though, Scheppelman’s campaign is over. In his Friday post, Trump said he met with Scheppelman and her husband, saying they would be “leaving the Campaign trail in order to join my Administration, in a capacity to be determined.”

Trump further said that he and the Scheppelmans “decided that Congressman Jeff Hurd, of Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District, should in no way, shape, or form, be impeded from winning the District in that the Democrat alternative is a DISASTER for our Country.”

Trump has made a habit of issuing strange endorsements the likes of which other politicians seldom dare.

His bag of tricks includes dual endorsements, triple endorsements, pre-endorsements, Election Day endorsements, yanking endorsements (hello, Mo Brooks), belated endorsements of a second candidate after initially endorsing just one candidate, non-endorsements after promising to endorse, and even the time he endorsed “ERIC” when Missouri’s Eric Schmitt and Eric Greitens were both running in the same Senate primary.

But until Friday, we’d never seen him pull a re-endorsement. So what on earth happened?

To understand, we have to head back to 2022, when the GOP nearly fumbled away western Colorado’s 3rd District—despite its conservative lean—thanks to the singular ineptitude of Lauren Boebert.

It was a problem even Boebert herself recognized: After holding off Democrat Adam Frisch by just 546 votes following a recount, she then switched to an even redder district to seek reelection in 2024.

Hurd, who had launched a challenge to Boebert before she fled to the friendlier 4th District on the other side of the state, soon became the new frontrunner for the GOP nod. However, far-right figures like Scheppelman despised Hurd and unsuccessfully sought to stop him in the primary.

Their gambit failed, but in the end, Hurd didn’t improve on Boebert nearly as much as he ought to have. He defeated Frisch by a soft 51-46 margin, even though Trump simultaneously carried the 3rd District by a considerably larger 54-44 spread. That outcome alone suggested the seat could be a reach target for Democrats, but a victory by Scheppelman in the June 30 primary would have moved the district up the list.

GOP leaders in the House understood this as well. According to Politico, Speaker Mike Johnson had pressed Trump to alter course a second time and once again bestow his blessing on Hurd.

That lobbying campaign is only the latest successful effort to convince Trump to change his mind when it comes to endorsements.

MAGA’s loudest soldiers, chief among them far-right influencer Laura Loomer, managed to get Trump to issue additional endorsements in a pair of Arizona elections earlier this year after they concluded his first choices were unacceptable. As a direct result, those initial endorsees—Karrin Taylor Robson in the race for governor, Gina Swoboda in the contest for the 1st Congressional District—both dropped their bids on back-to-back days.

Trump’s about-face on Hurd similarly shows that his endorsements, while still very influential, aren’t necessarily the final word in GOP politics anymore, especially if someone still has his ear.

And it may not be enough to save the 3rd District for Republicans. Hurd has drawn two notable Democratic challengers: private equity investor Alex Kelloff, who’s been running for almost a year, and Army veteran Dwayne Romero, who entered the race earlier this month with the support of Frisch.

Either will still face a difficult task in unseating Hurd, but given Trump’s haphazard approach to every other aspect of American life—beyond just his topsy-turvy endorsements—it’s a possibility no one can rule out.

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The big takeaways from the Illinois primaries

Governors

NM-Gov

New Mexico election officials have disqualified Republican state Sen. Steve Lanier from the June 2 primary ballot, saying he failed to file required paperwork by a deadline last Tuesday.

Lanier says he’s “looking at legal options and may file a challenge,” but if he’s unsuccessful, that would leave three Republicans in the race: Rio Rancho Mayor Gregg Hull and a pair of businessmen, Doug Turner and Duke Rodriguez.

A fifth candidate, Jim Ellison, dropped out last week and said he’d wage a write-in bid for the GOP nomination for state treasurer.

Ballot Measures

ME Ballot

Maine election officials said last week that a ballot measure campaign targeting transgender students had submitted enough signatures to go before voters in November.

The initiative would bar students from accessing restrooms and locker rooms or playing on a sports team designated for the gender they were not assigned at birth. The measure is funded by Richard Uihlein, who is one of the most prolific conservative megadonors in the country.

LGBTQ rights groups have formed a coalition urging a “no” vote this fall. A spokesperson highlighted Uihlein’s influence last month, saying that the “initiative is funded by one of the richest people in the world who is spending enormous amounts of money to promote extreme candidates and extreme ideas.”

Similar measures recently qualified for the ballot in Colorado.

Legislatures

NC State Senate

State Senate President Phil Berger requested a partial hand recount on Friday, one day after a machine recount left his 23-vote deficit against Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page unchanged.

The North Carolina Board of Elections now has until Tuesday to retabulate a random 3% of the ballots cast in the March 3 Republican primary for the 26th State Senate District. Berger, however, told state election officials that he wants a full hand recount no matter what this partial retabulation finds, though such a decision is at their discretion.

Berger has also filed election protests in the two counties that form his district, Rockingham and Guilford. Hearings on his protests are set for March 27 and April 6, respectively, and the election results won’t be certified until they’re resolved.

Poll Pile

• TX-Sen: Impact Research for James Talarico:

  • James Talarico (D): 43, John Cornyn (R-inc): 41, Ted Brown (L): 7.

  • Talarico (D): 44, Ken Paxton (R): 43, Brown (L): 5.

• TX-Sen (R): Change Research for Agave Social Welfare Fund:

  • Paxton: 42, Cornyn (inc): 39.

  • The poll was sponsored by a nonprofit affiliate of the Agave Democratic Infrastructure Fund.