What This Week’s Primary Results Reveal About Trump’s Control of the GOP

Added: 2026-05-28

[00:00:00]Hi everyone. Welcome to our weekly Substack show. Um, today we're looking at the mayoral race in Los Angeles, maybe the gubernatorial race as well.

[00:00:09]We're going to be talking to Liz Eyer about the latest um outrage that's happening at the Department of Justice.

[00:00:16]How can we keep up? But we're starting off with Amy Walter. Amy is publisher and editor-in-chief of the Cook Political Report.

[00:00:24]Amy like knows how to crunch numbers.

[00:00:26]She follows all these things meticulously and then helps us understand what is going on. And there were a lot of primaries this week and that's why we were so excited to have Amy join us to kind of break it down, to tell us what it all means. And I guess the headline Amy is Donald Trump still has a powerful grip on the Republican Party. That's right.

[00:00:51]However, my take would would be a little more nuanced than that. Donald Trump has a Yes, Donald Trump has an iron grip on the MAGA base. He is MAGA, MAGA is Donald Trump.

[00:01:05]However, MAGA is not the entire Republican base.

[00:01:10]A little less than half of Republicans identify themselves as Republicans. They're not Democrats. They don't want to vote for Democrats.

[00:01:18]They're not anti-Trump, but they see the world where the Republican Party is first and Trump is second as opposed to Trump's first and then the party.

[00:01:28]And when you look at those voters, what you find is that they are less enthusiastic about voting in this upcoming election than MAGA voters are, that they give Trump lower ratings on things like handling of the economy or the war in Iran than MAGA Republicans do. And that enthusiasm number is the really important one, Katie, because the reason Republicans and strategists that I talk to are the most worried about the upcoming election is that yes, mega voters are engaged and they show up in these primaries and they'll show up for Donald Trump. But given how poorly the president is doing with independent voters, his approval rating now among independent voters is somewhere between 25 and 27%.

[00:02:21]Mhm. And the lack of engagement by that non-mega wing of the party that sets up for just a a basically the bottom dropping out for Republicans this fall. So, they need to find a way to Republicans do to engage those non-mega voters and it's not by the president showing he can win primaries, it's the president showing them that he's following through on a lot of the things he said to them when he was running for president.

[00:02:55]>> But they must feel like they they're like people without a party in some ways. Yes, they're Republicans, but traditional Republicans it seems to me, Amy, you know better than I, are are few and far between. You know, you have all the Republicans in Congress basically, you know, uh defending and stand standing up for you know, stepping in line with whatever Donald Trump wants to do.

[00:03:22]And so they don't necessarily these members of Congress don't necessarily represent traditional Republicans and yet if they don't defend and stand behind and support Donald Trump, we see what happens and we watched it happen in these primaries. So, do they feel a little like, "Hey, is anyone out there representing our Right. I think um between let's call it 2017 and now, many of those what we grew up with Katie as as traditional Republicans, suburban, outside of major metro areas, they'd been voting Republican for like 100 years.

[00:04:05]Those ones are gone, okay? They're now Democrats.

[00:04:09]What's left is a party that is more conservative conservative. Um, this is still a party that believes in a lot of what the traditional Republicans did, lower taxes, less regulation. But they are they they don't dislike Donald Trump. Right? What they would like for him to do is less of what he's doing right now, i.e. going into primaries, um, going into uh the the ballroom or doing the the tweeting and the all of that stuff.

[00:04:45]And get back to the stuff that they do like about him, right? And and and they would would like to see that. And and this is really fundamentally the challenge, I think, for the Republican Party going forward. They have been very clear about who Donald Trump is and they've just come to some sort of peace with that. That this is who he is, this is how he he behaves.

[00:05:13]But that what they thought they were going to get in this second term was a Republican Congress and a Republican president who are going to focus on border security, cleaning up the uh the economy, lowering inflation, maybe releasing the Epstein files, and no foreign wars.

[00:05:39]And >> So, you don't think that Yeah, and you don't think that they are disgusted enough to change sides. They're just perhaps >> Yeah.

[00:05:48]>> disappointed enough to not to not turn out, and that's what the Republicans >> That's exactly right. So, that these aren't ones that are I think the folks who have left the party because they see Donald Trump just as an anathema to the Republican party they knew.

[00:06:05]They've already left.

[00:06:07]And now we're voting Democrat. These are ones who they are not they do not like Democrats. They are still watching Fox News. They're uh they're all in.

[00:06:17]They're just not excited. And look, this is what happened This is where Democrats were at this point in 2022.

[00:06:26]They they the the hardcore folks behind were still going to show up, the activist part of the Democratic party.

[00:06:36]But for the folks who are like, I don't know.

[00:06:39]Yeah, I voted for Biden, but like inflation's too high.

[00:06:43]Why isn't he focused on that? And I just feel like he's not getting it. He says it's transitory. I don't feel it's transitory. I'm not going to vote for a Democrat, but I don't know that I I feel like it's important for me to turn out for Democrats. So, sort of that the happy dance that MAGA Republicans are doing with the results of the primary, would you say they need to be careful about irrational exuberance um because traditionally these primary voters are extremely uh they're going to >> They're going to show up no matter what.

[00:07:17]Right. So, they're not necessarily representative uh of a of a general election and what will happen then.

[00:07:23]>> Correct. So, I think that's that's A, and B, this happens in every midterm election.

[00:07:29]If you are um you know, in this case a Republican, but if you were a Democrat in 2010 or in 2022, the president's unpopular. What do you try to do? You try to show some distance, right? Oh, I'm an independent voice.

[00:07:45]You know, the president is has done these things, but here's how I will be different from that. You can't just put me in the same bucket as this unpopular president.

[00:07:55]Well, Trump makes that very hard to do because he's making it very clear that I control this party. And so, for a Republican to come out and say, "Well, actually, I'm an independent voice." That's hard to do now. It's hard for that to be taken credibly by voters who aren't already Republicans. Or if if they do say that, they're going to be penalized at the polls. And that's what >> Well. Right? So, that's what kind of case in point with Thomas Massie, right?

[00:08:25]Can you talk about that race, what happened, and what it means? Right. So, Massie is a is an interesting example of, you know, a guy who has always been kind of a gadfly to leadership, whether it when Donald Trump was president, when Donald Trump wasn't president. He came in during that sort of Tea Party era, libertarian, the rise of the sort of libertarian, we got to worry about the deficit first and everything else next. Um very concerned about privacy issues.

[00:08:59]Things like that. Um he was often the, you know, when there were 350 to one votes, he was the one, okay? So, this isn't unique. What I think really ticked off the president was it's not just that he voted against the big beautiful bill.

[00:09:19]>> big beautiful bill.

[00:09:21]It's that he was one of the drivers of the Epstein file release, right? And that was personally um you know, it went to sort of the heart of uh uh sort of going after Trump personally as opposed to just going after his legislative record, right? If you voted against a piece of piece of legislation cuz you said spends too much money, I've always been a budget uh hawk, hawk, yeah. This is too much for me.

[00:09:53]That's one thing. If it's you're releasing these Epstein files, which we've made pretty clear that we don't think those are important and they're going to embarrass a whole bunch of people uh within uh my world and um I don't want you to do that and then you do it.

[00:10:15]That's I think that was his his bigger sin.

[00:10:18]But you also saw a lot of money coming in not just from MAGA groups, but um also uh pro-Israel group, uh the AIPAC group, which has also been a big foe of Massie. He has for years called for defunding um aid or cutting off aid to Israel um and this was an opportunity AIPAC saw sort of kind of like they were able to get in the wake that Trump kind of created, right? By all the money coming in and all the attention there on Thomas Massie and a candidate who was funded and um helped out by the MAGA organization.

[00:11:10]AIPAC was also able to come into that slipstream and put their money behind his opponent. So, the guy who beat Massie I'm just looking at this, uh is that is a Navy SEAL, right?

[00:11:26]>> Yeah. Uh Gal Ryan Ryan Gal Ryan, is that right?

[00:11:29]>> Gal Ryan, yeah.

[00:11:30]>> Gal Ryan, um and so what happens next?

[00:11:36]Now it's done. I mean there is a general election, but um this is a very Republican district that that will vote for him in the fall.

[00:11:48]But Katie, here's the more interesting thing I think that happened yesterday that wasn't about the primary results.

[00:11:54]It was Donald Trump's decision to endorse Ken Paxton in Texas over incumbent Republican John Cornyn. Now he had stayed out of this race even as Paxton is much closer to Trump than Cornyn is.

[00:12:08]Um but it looked as if he was going to stay neutral and let this play out. And he didn't.

[00:12:16]>> Amy didn't John Cornyn recently What did he do? Wanted Trump's Did he want something from him?

[00:12:22]>> his name He He introduced a bill to have a highway named after him in the the highway. Yes, exactly. So obviously John Cornyn >> done a lot. Yes, to ingratiate himself with the president. And even though he didn't get the president's endorsement, he thought, "Well, it's still good that the president hasn't endorsed Paxton." Well, that changed yesterday. And why this is important is for two reasons. The first is the most immediate.

[00:12:49]Paxton is a much more vulnerable candidate in the general election and for Republicans James Talarico must be so stoked that he endorsed Paxton, right?

[00:13:00]>> Oh, it was the best day of his campaign thus far, right?

[00:13:06]Other than winning the primary. The This has to be a second best day.

[00:13:09]Um Paxton not only is very flawed, but he's a terrible fundraiser. And Talarico already has banked a ton of cash. Now it's a ridiculous amount of money to campaign in Texas as it is. It's going to cost you know, hundreds, millions of dollars.

[00:13:31]Money that Republicans would like to spend in places like Georgia or Michigan or you know, all the other battleground states this year, Ohio.

[00:13:43]Um instead a lot of that's going to have to get funneled to Texas, which [clears throat] it wouldn't have to be the case if John Cornyn were the nominee.

[00:13:50]But the second thing, and you saw that this week with uh Senator Cassidy who Trump also endorsed against. Cassidy, of course, voted to impeach the president after January 6th.

[00:14:02]And uh the president endorsed his opponent.

[00:14:09]Cassidy lost.

[00:14:10]The next day he came back to Congress and he said, "You know what?

[00:14:14]I'm uh voting against the Iran war resolution.

[00:14:18]You know what? I'm going to start standing up, right?" And he's siding now.

[00:14:24]>> He was also the deciding vote confirming RFK Jr., right? And now Trump has said that that he had lied to him. Has he said that he's going to do anything in that department? Well, he's still the chairman of that committee until January, right? So, no matter So, these guys are still around. Cornyn's still around.

[00:14:43]And uh Cal- and um Cassidy still around.

[00:14:48]>> Massie, someone Urban Hermit, hi Urban Hermit, asked um will Massie use his remaining time in Congress to burn Trump? Yeah, well, he If you're the Trump I I think for Trump and for the leadership, you could argue Look, he was already a thorn in our side, right? So, that doesn't change that much. He'll continue to be a thorn. The The bigger problem, I think, is in the Senate where you took two allies. These guys were in lockstep, not defecting from the White House um on a any vote or confirmation.

[00:15:25]And now that they are freed from this, much like Tom Tillis from North Carolina, as soon as the president threatened him with a um, a a primary after Tillis voted against the big beautiful bill, um, Tillis basically said, "Okay. Well, I'm not going to run again."

[00:15:47]But now he's been freed up to basically grow a spine.

[00:15:54]As we call it, we're now calling it, um, the Yolo era for these Republicans who just right, your your political career's over, but you're still there. So, you're um, and you still have power. And remember, this is the president doesn't have that big of a cushion in the Senate. So, whether it's a uh, confirming appointments to cabinet positions, judges, those are pretty big, um, important things that even if there's no legislation that will pass between now and the end of the year, those two things alone have a lot of power. And then, of course, um, on this issue of Iran, you now have, um, a number of Republicans, including those who are up this year, like Susan Collins in Maine, who are already questioning the Iran, um, decision. It may now be, um, you know, the ferocity. Certainly, it was another place for him to, um, to now flex his independence, even as he did not during his tenure as senator.

[00:17:12]Interesting. Let's talk it I want to get the big picture in a moment, but I I do feel like I want to understand what happened in Georgia, Amy. Yeah. Can you help me kind of sift through the primary results there, and and then I'd love to ask you about Jon Ossoff, too, but Sure.

[00:17:30]Yeah, tell me what happened in Georgia is one of those states that also has a runoff system. So, if you don't hit 50% of the vote in the primary, you have to go to a runoff.

[00:17:42]That is what we're seeing on the Republican side for the gubernatorial for the Senate race. Jon Ossoff, the Democratic senator, did not have a primary, so he is free to just basically focus on the general election, while his two opponents face off in a runoff.

[00:18:01]On the On the Senate side, look, it was clear from the very beginning that Republicans really wanted Governor Kemp to run there. He's popular.

[00:18:12]He has been able He's one of the very few who's been able to, in a swing state, bring together the MAGA wing of the party, and as we were talking about that more traditional Republican wing, or that skeptical Trump wing of the party, and bring them together. They really wanted him to run for Senate. He said no.

[00:18:32]And the candidates who did jump in very closely aligned with President Trump.

[00:18:38]One of them ended up getting a slot in this runoff.

[00:18:42]Congressman Mike Collins. The other one is an ally of Governor Kemp, and he is not a politician by career choice. Um, he's been a football coach, including at University of Georgia, which we all know, if you've ever been down to Georgia, every sentence starts with Go Dogs, and then you fill in the blank after that, right?

[00:19:07]Um, so that's a big deal. Uh, he also coached Herschel Walker um, during his tenure there. Uh, that campaign, of course, uh, Herschel Walker's in Georgia did not go particularly well. But the thought is that, you know, having somebody who's an outsider who, again, has the support of Brian Kemp can be helpful in a state where Brian Kemp is popular and where Donald Trump is not. But is Donald Trump now going to say, "Well, wait a minute.

[00:19:35]I don't want Brian Kemp to get credit for winning at this. I'm going to go in and endorse now because he hasn't until this point." Am I Is he going to go in and endorse in that race? Now, it's not clear either one of them would be a better choice against Ossoff.

[00:19:51]I think Ossoff is going to win.

[00:19:53]>> I was going to say, Ossoff is doing really, really well. I think he's considered a big rising star, I think, in the Democratic Party. I know he's had some very impressive public [clears throat] appearances. People kind of have noted how, you know, eloquent he is. And, um, so I think And he's pretty popular, too, right? Yeah, I mean, he's It's a This is a real swing state. Uh, um, so if you can get reelected as a Democrat in a state that went for Trump, uh, once, went for Well, went for Trump twice and went for Democrat once, um, that's an That's a really impressive, um, resume builder if you want to, I don't know, maybe run for president at some point. Right? Um, uh, and the, you know, first he has to get through this election, but it, um, he has the benefit of not just having, you know, his his own brand that is helpful and his money, which is also helpful, but the president really is deeply unpopular in that state. And so >> Is Brian Kemp you think going to run for president? Is that why he decided not to run for Senate?

[00:21:12]>> I don't know. That's a good question. I mean, what is the world going to look like?

[00:21:19]He He must be in his 60s now. He's been in public life Amy, he's a baby if he's in his 60s.

[00:21:27]>> Oh, I know. That's true. Okay. Yeah, 60's the new 40, I guess, when it comes to politics. 70's the new 40. Um There is a whole line of people who want to jump in in 2028. I don't know if that would be the right if that would be the right time for him to come in. But if the party says we're looking we're looking for somebody who's not attached to Washington, who's not part of the Trump administration, we want to kind of make a clean break.

[00:22:02]Yeah. Brian Kemp might be a good fit.

[00:22:04]>> He makes it right. He's not Again, he's not anti-Trump. Right? They're not The party is regardless of what happens in 2028, the party is not going back to the Mitt Romney, John McCain, George W. Bush.

[00:22:21]Those Those folks will not win a nomination. In the same way that Democrats aren't going to go back to Bill Clinton. He would be considered like a MAGA right now in a Democratic primary. Just way too conservative for the modern Democratic Party. But they may be open to somebody who can balance both that right? Like understanding what MAGA is and who it is and then bringing along independents who were either turned off by MAGA or want to seize the policies but don't want the personality that Trump brought.

[00:22:58]Let me ask you just sort of we have about 5 minutes left, Amy, about the you know, this gerrymandering mania that has happened, you know, and continues to happen. What do you How do you see this all shaking out? I know that the Republicans are are getting rid of a lot of majority minority districts.

[00:23:22]We've seen this happen in recent weeks.

[00:23:26]And and I know that you all wrote about the fact that Democrats may be diluting some of their strengths by the gerrymandering things that they're doing. Can you just kind of give us an overview about how how this is going to shake out in December?

[00:23:41]>> shakes out. I mean, Katie, I think what we're in for is just for the foreseeable future, a continued tit-for-tat on this.

[00:23:52]Because, you know, the seal has been broken. Something that was never done before now has been done. So, now everybody feels that they need to to to to do this. I think you're going to see in places in in blue states next year, like Colorado or New York, where they have these independent commissions, those commissions um being uh basically through a ballot initiative, you can get rid of those that that uh way of drawing lines like they did in California.

[00:24:28]But, uh so, Democrats will go ahead and and try to do that in those states. The the challenge, I think, for Democrats is this. The argument that they're making um about why the the end of Section 2 is is so important of the Voting Rights Act is so important is because it dilutes the voices of black voters and brown voters.

[00:24:56]And it also reduces their ranks in Congress.

[00:25:00]And yet if Democrats are to win a redistricting war, they've got to look at their own districts that are overwhelmingly that are not in the South but in places like New Jersey or Illinois that are overwhelmingly black or overwhelmingly Latino and to break those districts up and spread those voters into Republican districts to make those Republican districts more Democratic. So, do you keep those majority black districts whole?

[00:25:34]Sure. And it and it ensures that you have a a seat at a a is is represented or not assured but almost assuredly represented by a black uh representative. Or do you say, "Boy, if we took 100,000 of these voters and we put them in these two districts, we now turn them from Democrat to uh from Republican to Democrat and we gain two seats.

[00:25:58]Which is more important?" Well, I guess the question is Amy though, I mean a lot of this and again, you're the expert. It seems to me and George Conway said this when I interviewed him the other day that a lot of this is based on assumptions that may not hold. You know, he was talking about the Latino vote that has that that is kind of cratered for Donald Trump or in some districts, I guess. And that some of these assured voters who these political strategists or right party operatives think are going to fall under a certain, you know, uh D or R column that that changing demographics and and the impact of Trump's policies and maybe the way he conducts himself, like it's really hard to say how these voters are feeling. Do they Do they know that >> and is there a backlash to that, right?

[00:26:55]I mean, we saw it in to a certain extent in in Virginia where the ballot initiative passed, and of course the court has since thrown thrown that ballot initiative out. But where you saw the most energy and turnout was in rural parts of the state who understandably said, "Well, wait a minute. If the center of this district and the population center of this district is 200 miles away in northern Virginia, are they really going to care about little old us in this rural part, right? We We aren't being And that got them motivated to show up and vote. So, are we going to see other even states that where you don't have redistricting going on voters saying, "We don't like this, and we're going to turn out to show our uh our frustration with just the way this is all been going on, right? Um feeling like they're taking the vote away from uh voters of color. Will that increase turnout there? And I think you're exactly right when it comes to drawing these districts based on results from the last election.

[00:28:06]You know, if you look at South Texas or South or South Florida, they moved dramatically between 20 and 2024 because of the movement of Latino voters. Well, we don't know Those voters are not hardened into Republican or Democratic column. They're going to float.

[00:28:27]And nor are they monolithic, you know?

[00:28:30]>> Exactly.

[00:28:31]Exactly. So, you know, every This is the whole reason you you draw districts every 10 years. You don't draw them every year based on the the short-term gain that you think you're going going get. And so, I think what we'll find out at the end of this year is what is the takeaway from both parties?

[00:28:53]Was it worth the risk? Now, again, just based on the data right now, it's not necessarily putting current incumbents in trouble. All right, it may it may they may not win all the seats they think they're going to win, but it's it's not going to suddenly knock off an incumbent. But, if it does, or if you know, enough legislators start stand up and say, "We're not doing this ever again.

[00:29:20]This was a disaster." Well, I wish they would do something at that at the federal level because otherwise it's just going to change and then you'll find the state legislature changes parties then I mean, it's honestly it seems like such a it's just pure politics It is. and >> And and gerrymandering, I said this the other day, but you know, when I first started covering politics, you know, gerrymandering has always been around.

[00:29:46]There's nothing new about this, but it was very parochial, right? It's like, "I want to draw a district because we need to protect Katie's seat um because she has a powerful perch on the Ways and Means Committee. So, we want to make sure to protect her."

[00:30:02]That's very different from "We're doing this for national purposes," right? We want to make sure that we keep Democrats in power or keep Republicans in power.

[00:30:14]And that to me is Plus, I mean, let's not dangerous, yeah. But but Amy, and then then I'll let you go, but I mean I mean, not to sound like I'm in fourth grade, but Trump started it, right? I mean, he the Republicans started it.

[00:30:30]That's where we're going to end up.

[00:30:31]That's right. And if there's nothing else to say, that's where we're going to end >> mid-decade mid-decade redistricting before a census had been taken.

[00:30:39]And so, I do feel like I I I feel like the Democrats had no choice but to play this game or they really would have been screwed, which leads me to my last question. You've been crunching the numbers, you look at things that are happening. Uh you you you're seeing these seats being redrawn.

[00:30:59]I don't know if you feel comfortable, but come November, you know, there was some excitement about the Democrats not only taking over the house but potentially the Senate. Where do you see things right now? And And do you If you had to look at your crystal ball, where do you things Where do you see things going? Because this isn't going to stop, right?

[00:31:20]It's not going to stop. You mean on redistricting? Yeah. It's not. So, let's just assume as long as the House and Senate remain Well, the Senate doesn't get redistricted, but as long as the House remains really close um in terms of someone has a majority, but it's very narrow. Um they will continue to try to find every advantage that they can to eke out one or two seats because those could be the difference between majority minority. Um that's one. The second is even with the success Republicans have had post the Virginia case, um you know, the so the Virginia map being overturned and then the Supreme Court case, you know, they they've been able to um they'll probably net six seats out of this whole That's probably where they'll end up six or seven seats from this redistricting, which again, when control of Congress is you know, as narrowly divided as it is, six or seven seats matter. But the political environment is such that that firewall is just not high enough for the big storm that's about to hit.

[00:32:32]So, you think the Democrats will still take over?

[00:32:35]>> That Yes, that that that that even with that cushion there are enough vulnerable incumbent because of the political environment. It just means that the cap the ceiling for Democratic gains goes down. The Senate is a is a much more challenging environment for Democrats simply because again if the the the structural advantages that Republicans have are that much bigger.

[00:33:09]But as we just talked about having Ken Paxton in Texas well that is one benefit that Democrats didn't think they would necessarily get. Right? So he takes a seat that on paper should be relatively safe even in a bad year and puts it into competitive category.

[00:33:34]And then you add on to that Iowa, Ohio, Alaska. All of them are Trump double-digit seats. But Trump is underwater in popularity in all of those states. And so the real question as we head into the fall, we'll leave it with this, is can Republicans um try to make the case that the Democratic candidate, and remember Democrats aren't popular either. I mean voters hate everybody right now, but say, "Look, things may be bad now, but if you put these guys in charge, it's going to be that much worse." Um it is we will we have yet to see if that will work, but right now um this is a very dangerous political environment even for Republican in a district that Trump won pretty easily.

[00:34:26]Well Amy Walter, so good to see you.

[00:34:28]Thank you so good to see you. Thank you for having me. Yeah, thanks for breaking it down.

[00:34:32]Um, and and always appreciate your insight and your coverage.

[00:34:36]>> you having me. Good to see you again.

[00:34:39]All right. Bye-bye.

[00:34:40]>> Okay. Bye.