Morning Digest: Two more Trump favorites struggle toward the finish line

And Trump's endorsement record this year is even worse than it looks

South Carolina Sen. Darline Graham (left). (Credit: Darline Graham Facebook)

Leading Off

SC-Sen, OK-Gov

Two more of Donald Trump’s endorsed candidates face difficult and unpredictable runoffs on Tuesday as a challenging primary season for MAGA’s master nears its end.

Trump is backing Sen. Darline Graham, the sister and successor of the late Lindsey Graham, as she takes on Rep. Ralph Norman in South Carolina. He’s also pulling for Mike Mazzei, a former Oklahoma state senator, over Attorney General Gentner Drummond in the contest for the state’s open governorship.

Both Graham and Mazzei have emphasized those endorsements to counter opponents who question their ability to serve. But while Norman argues Palmetto State Republicans should nominate him despite his lack of support from the White House, Drummond is going further and trying to turn Trump’s preference into a negative for Mazzei.

“I think Oklahoma and I are supportive of President Trump and many of his policies,” Drummond told NewsNation on Sunday before declaring, “I’m unafraid to disagree with the president when he’s wrong, and he’s wrong on tariffs. He’s wrong on importing cheap beef.”

“Mike Mazzei may remain silent,” he further wrote in an X post sharing a clip of the interview. “I’ll stand with Oklahoma’s farmers and ranchers, even when it means disagreeing with the President.”

Drummond, who hails from one of the state’s most influential ranching families, was on the offensive even before Trump infuriated groups like the Oklahoma Cattlemen’s Association on Friday by saying he would allow the tariff-free importation of up to 300,000 metric tons of foreign-produced ground beef.

Mazzei has faced uncomfortable questions about whether he’s capable of serving as governor due to his injuries in a 2008 car crash that, even five years later, resulted in him missing hundreds of votes in the legislature.

His recent behavior during debates and at other events has invited more scrutiny. The attorney general piled on this month by challenging Mazzei to join him in taking a drug test, and Drummond has kept the matter alive by insisting the negative test his opponent released failed to resolve the issue.

Mazzei, who denies being on any medication as a result of the accident, has countered by emphasizing that he’s Trump’s preferred candidate—something he highlights twice on the introductory page for his website. Trump has also piled on by aggressively attacking Drummond and his wife as “Radical Left Dumocrats.”

“It’s really this test of: Can a Trump endorsement get a dud over the finish line?” Seth McKee, a political science professor at Oklahoma State University, told The Hill of the race.

Observers are asking similar questions in South Carolina about Graham, whose campaign has been overshadowed by an instantly infamous debate flub last week in which she admitted, “I’m not that informed on national security.”

Trump, though, by no means saw that moment as a deal-breaker.

“She’s going to do what the military wants, and really what the president wants,” he told reporters Friday. “She understands that national security is my thing.”

Trump made those remarks shortly before he traveled to Myrtle Beach to hold a rally for Graham, one of the rare candidates he’s held an in-person event for this year. (On Monday, Trump graced Mazzei with a virtual “tele-rally.”)

It was at that gathering that Graham finally received the support of Gov. Henry McMaster, who picked her last month for what the governor reportedly thought would be just a temporary appointment.

That same day, though, Norman secured an endorsement from the one and only Mark Sanford, the former congressman and governor who competed in the first round of voting two weeks ago. Graham led Norman 33-25 on Aug. 11, while Sanford took fourth place with 15%. Rep. Russell Fry, who finished in third with 20%, backed the incumbent later that week after multiple media outlets reported Trump pressured him to do so.

Graham, like Mazzei, is also framing Trump as a key fault line in her campaign.

“Ralph Norman says he stands with President Trump, but when it’s mattered most, Norman’s stood in his way,” the narrator says in one ad for Graham. The spot goes on to play footage from Friday’s rally as the narrator promises, “President Trump and Sen. Darline Graham will keep our borders secure, protect Social Security, and always put America first.”

There’s minimal polling to indicate who is favored in either contest. A pair of surveys conducted in Oklahoma during the first week of August showed a tight race between Mazzei and Drummond, but no one has released any data since then. And in South Carolina, there’ve been no reliable polls in the two weeks since Graham and Norman moved forward.

In both contests, though, the eventual GOP nominee will be favored in the fall. Oklahoma Democrats are fielding state House Minority Leader Cyndi Munson for governor, while pediatrician Annie Andrews is the Democratic nominee for South Carolina’s Senate seat.

The dual runoffs come near the tail end of a primary season that’s tested the power of Trump’s complete and total endorsement—a test he’s repeatedly failed.

This year, Trump has backed eight candidates for governor and the House who, starting in early June, lost primaries against a candidate Trump did not support:

• IA-Gov: Randy Feenstra lost to Zach Lahn

• GA-Gov: Burt Jones lost to Rick Jackson

• MI-08: Amir Hassan lost to Tom Smith

• TN-05: Rep. Andy Ogles lost to Charlie Hatcher

• MN-Gov: Mike Lindell lost to Lisa Demuth

• FL-07: Rep. Cory Mills lost to Ryan Elijah

• FL-19: Catalina Lauf lost to Jim Schwartzel

• WY-Gov: Megan Degenfelder lost to Eric Barlow

Trump’s record this election cycle, though, is even worse than it looks.

He previously offered his sole endorsement to a pair of Arizona Republicans, Karrin Taylor Robson and Gina Swoboda, who were respectively running for governor and for the 1st Congressional District. Trump, though, backed away from both women in the face of ardent opposition from powerful far-right figures, including influencer Laura Loomer and leaders in Arizona’s branch of the Freedom Caucus.

While Trump didn’t withdraw his support for either contender, he still found a way to give his restive base what it was demanding and avoid being stuck promoting doomed candidates. To do that, Trump backed both Andy Biggs and Robson for governor while endorsing both Jay Feely and Swoboda for Congress.

Both Robson and Swoboda ultimately got the message and dropped out within a day of one another. Biggs and Feely, now blessed with Trump’s exclusive support, went on to win their primaries with ease.

Trump pulled the same maneuver in June as polls showed South Carolina Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, his sole choice to replace the termed-out McMaster, badly trailing Attorney General Alan Wilson in the runoff. While Trump insisted Republicans “can’t go wrong” with either candidate, days later they overwhelmingly nominated Wilson.

Trump has also backed a pair of scandal-ridden candidates who dropped out of their primaries before they could lose.

This first happened in March in Texas after Trump stuck with Rep. Tony Gonzales, who spent the final weeks of his campaign for the 23rd District facing intense scrutiny about allegations he’d had an affair with a staffer who died by suicide. Far-right “gunfluencer” Brandon Herrera narrowly led Gonzales 43-42 in the primary, which was below the majority of the vote either needed to avoid a runoff.

But that second round never happened. The very next day, Gonzales admitted to the affair, and he announced the following evening that he was ending his reelection campaign. Herrera automatically became the GOP nominee to replace Gonzales, who resigned in disgrace in April.

A similar sequence of events played out in June in Oklahoma’s open 1st District, where Trump endorsed far-right pastor Jackson Lahmeyer. Even after the Daily Mail, a British tabloid, reported that Lahmeyer sent sexual messages to a former Miss Oklahoma and acknowledged he’d “cross[ed] a boundary line through text messaging,” Trump was quick to reaffirm his support.

However, things rapidly changed the day after Lahmeyer found himself trailing state Rep. Mark Tedford 32-26 in the primary, a result that likewise required a runoff. Trump, however, announced Tedford was now the sole recipient of his “Complete and Total Endorsement” in the second round of voting, an election that never happened because Lahmeyer responded mere minutes later by quitting the race.

Despite all of these setbacks on and off the ballot, Trump characteristically claimed on Sunday that his endorsement is “stronger than ever” while arguing any defeats were not his fault.

“​​The few that lost were done out of loyalty,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “It was almost impossible for them to win but, I felt obligated to go with them because they were, in my opinion, good people.”

There’s no question that Trump will respond to Tuesday’s contests in South Carolina and Oklahoma by trumpeting any victory for his candidates and excusing away any failures. But defeats for Graham or Mazzei—or potentially even both—will only add to the questions about how much power Trump’s endorsements have.

Such concerns won’t matter much for what’s left of the 2026 primary season, however. The only major primary Trump has taken sides in is the contest for New Hampshire’s open 1st District, where he’s supporting wealthy developer Anthony DiLorenzo. But any problems for Trump’s slate on Tuesday will play a bigger role in 2027 and 2028 as Trump enters the final years of his last term in office.

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Democrats claim another big special election victory

Election Night

GA-13

Georgia will hold the last congressional special election before November on Tuesday, even though there are two other seats that have been vacant even longer.

The race for the safely blue 13th District in the Atlanta area is a rematch between two Democrats: activist Marcye Scott, the daughter of the late Rep. David Scott, and Everton Blair, a former chair of the Gwinnett County Board of Education. In the first round of voting late last month, Scott led Blair 46-37, but because no candidate won a majority, a runoff was required.

The winner will serve out the final months of the deceased congressman’s term, but neither will still be in office when the House reconvenes in January. That’s because state Rep. Jasmine Clark won the Democratic nomination for a full term in the regularly scheduled primary in May.

Blair finished a distant third in that race, while Scott did not participate, because her father’s death on April 22 was more than a month after the filing deadline. That leaves Clark the overwhelming favorite to win the 13th District against token GOP opposition in November.

Following the Georgia special election, Republicans will hold 219 seats in the House versus 214 for Democrats. But two other seats that also became vacant in April will evidently not get filled before November, due to inaction on the part of Republican governors.

Southwestern Texas’ 23rd District has been empty ever since Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales resigned on April 14 amid an ethics investigation into an affair with a former aide that he admitted to. Exactly a week later, Democratic Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick followed suit, stepping down from South Florida’s 20th District while facing criminal charges over her alleged misuse of campaign funds.

Both Texas and Florida give their governors wide leeway over when to schedule special elections, and both Greg Abbott and Ron DeSantis have exploited that latitude by refusing to hold races to fill either seat. In Florida, DeSantis’ decision has kept Democrats from reclaiming a safely blue seat, while in Texas, Abbott’s dereliction has prevented Republicans from a potentially embarrassing loss in a conservative district Democrats are hoping to flip in the fall.

The consequences of denying representation to the residents of these districts have had an impact far beyond the size of each party’s caucus.

A devastating parasite called the New World screwworm, which lays eggs in the wounds of warm-blooded animals that transform into flesh-eating larvae that can kill their hosts, returned to the United States in June after a long dormancy. It first appeared in Texas’ sprawling 23rd District, frustrating ranchers who lack a voice on Capitol Hill to advocate for their concerns.

Yet despite the prolonged vacancies, neither situation prompted any sort of legal action, meaning both seats will likely remain empty until January.

Senate

NE-Sen

Former union official Mike Marvin, the nominee of Nebraska’s Legal Marijuana Now Party, has dropped his bid for the Senate and endorsed independent Dan Osborn instead.

Marvin cited health issues in quitting his campaign but said in a statement that defeating Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts was his highest priority. Because Democrat Cindy Burbank withdrew from the race in July, Osborn will likely face Ricketts in a one-on-one matchup. However, Marvin’s name will remain on the ballot, though Burbank’s will not.

It’s still possible, though, that a pair of brand-new parties could nominate candidates for November: the America First Party and the Nebraska Working People Party. The new parties must still submit additional paperwork to the state by Thursday and nominate candidates by Sept. 1, though a legal challenge remains pending.

House

FL-11

A recount of the GOP primary for Florida’s open 11th District failed to budge the margins at all, leaving wealthy businessman Joe Strada as the winner over former Lake County property appraiser Carey Baker by 393 votes. Strada will be the favorite to succeed retiring Republican Rep. Daniel Webster, who supported Baker, in this suburban Orlando district, which voted for Donald Trump by a 57-42 margin.

LA-06

State Sen. Blake Miguez has announced endorsements from both the Louisiana Republican Party and the far-right Club for Growth for the 6th District, an open seat Miguez and his colleagues radically transformed during the most recent round of redistricting. Both entities had backed Miguez when he was campaigning for the old 5th District, but they had not previously said whether they’d support his new effort.

Obituaries

Nancy Kassebaum Baker

Former Sen. Nancy Kassebaum Baker, a Kansas Republican whose 1978 victory made her the first woman elected to the Senate without succeeding a husband, died Friday at 94.

Kassebaum Baker, who opted not to seek reelection in 1996, was a prominent member of a once-powerful faction of moderate Kansas Republicans. In retirement, however, she responded to the conservative takeover of the GOP by frequently endorsing Democrats, including Gov. Laura Kelly during both her 2018 and 2022 campaigns and Kamala Harris’ 2024 presidential bid.

The Associated Press’ John Hanna has more on Kassebaum Baker’s long life and career in his obituary.

Poll Pile

• NC-Sen: High Point University:

  • Roy Cooper (D): 50, Michael Whatley (R): 45.

  • April: 50-42 Cooper.

• AZ-Gov: Kreate Strategies for American Encore:

  • Katie Hobbs (D-inc): 45, Andy Biggs (R): 40.

• AZ-Gov: HighGround Public Affairs:

  • Hobbs (D-inc): 50, Biggs (R): 34.

• CA-Gov: David Wolfson for Steve Hilton:

  • Xavier Becerra (D): 49, Hilton (R): 41

• LA-06 (all party primary): BDPC for Alton Ashy and unidentified client:

  • Chauna Banks (D): 19, Rick Edmonds (R): 16, Blake Miguez (R): 9, Pat Forbes (D): 8, Larry Davis (R): 6, all others 1% or less, undecided: 40.

• NC Supreme Court: High Point:

  • Anita Earls (D-inc): 47, Sarah Stevens (R): 44.

  • April: 43-43 tie.