What becomes of Republicans who cross King Donald?
Since becoming president for the first time in 2017, Mr Trump has reshaped the Republican Party in his image. Loyalty comes before all else in the Trump Party
DONALD TRUMP’S One Big Beautiful Bill act (BBB) is a Frankenstein’s monster of hand-outs, carve-outs, tax cuts and ideological splurges and purges. Independent analysis suggests it will increase America’s deficit, stunt the economy and hit the poorest hardest. A recent poll by YouGov and The Economist found that just over one in three Americans support the bill. Elon Musk, a big Republican donor and a former “first buddy” of Mr Trump, is so unhappy that he is proposing to create a new political party. Even so, only five Republican members of Congress voted against it—fewer than any budget of Mr Trump’s first term.
Since becoming president for the first time in 2017, Mr Trump has reshaped the Republican Party in his image. Loyalty comes before all else in the Trump Party: Republicans who cross him could find themselves on the receiving end of a social-media rant or, worse, facing a Trump-endorsed primary challenger. After Thom Tillis (pictured) voted against the BBB , Mr Trump took to Truth Social, his social-media platform, to condemn the senator from North Carolina, calling for a loyalist to run against him. Mr Tillis chose to withdraw from his re-election campaign altogether. His exit is a boon for Democrats who hope to win his seat next year.
After combing through 52,792 of the president’s social-media posts, The Economist has identified 30 Republican members of Congress whom Mr Trump has publicly scorned or sought to displace since his first inauguration (see chart 1). Of those 30, ten went on to resign or decide not to run for re-election, including Mr Tillis. Nine faced a Trump-endorsed primary opponent. Five are standing for re-election in 2026. The data is reminiscent of the famous epigram “divorced, beheaded, died; divorced, beheaded, survived”. Of course, the parallel to Henry VIII is unfair. Unlike the murderous English monarch, Mr Trump shows clemency. He publicly reconciled with seven of the 30 (although the feud resumed in four cases).
The president’s ire has been directed at one in 20 Republicans who have served in the past eight years. That this number is not greater can be credited to the fear instilled by six occasions when a candidate endorsed by Mr Trump defeated a Republican incumbent. By this method, he dispatched four of the ten House Republicans who voted to impeach him in 2021, along with Representatives Mark Sanford, an early critic, and Bob Good, a hard-right conservative caught on tape implying that Mr Trump was not a “true conservative”. His endorsement is so valuable that one Republican congressman from Kentucky took to airing ads in south Florida, aimed to reach Mr Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.
The president’s ability to dislodge unfriendly colleagues is not absolute. Three Republicans have survived a Trump-endorsed challenge. Nancy Mace, a congresswoman from South Carolina, survived by embracing Mr Trump, recanting her previous, mild criticisms. Two of the remaining Republicans who supported Mr Trump’s second impeachment—Senator Lisa Murkowski and Representative Dan Newhouse—defeated primary opponents under voting systems which allow voters to cross party lines. Ranked-choice voting in Alaska and the two-round system in Washington state meant they could draw on support from sympathetic or tactical Democrats and independents.
Mr Trump appears to understand the limits of his powers. He has notably avoided feuding with Representative David Valadao of California, and despite calling her “absolutely atrocious” in 2022 he has been relatively muted about Senator Susan Collins of Maine. Although both of them voted for his impeachment, they also represented constituencies that leaned towards the Democrats (Mr Valadao now represents a more Republican-leaning district). Maine uses ranked-choice voting and California uses a two-round system. Mr Trump’s strategic restraint could be to preserve his record. “I am 42-0 over the last two cycles and never even tried to run up the score,” he said of his endorsements in 2022.
For their part, Democrats are happy to enjoy the red-on-red scraps. In 2022, Nancy Pelosi, then Speaker of the House, made the controversial decision to use Democratic campaign funds to boost pro-Trump Republicans. Though arguably corrosive for democracy, in a narrow sense the gamble paid off. In three of the six races where Mr Trump unseated his critics, the Republican replacements went on to lose the general election.
Be careful what you wish for
Republicans in competitive districts have to weigh the risks of crossing Mr Trump against the risks of being too closely associated with him as voters’ dissatisfaction rises. Mr Trump’s loyal base, who vote in Republican primaries, are pitted against moderate general-election voters. This dynamic is a gift for the Democrats, who have a narrow path to regaining the Senate in next year’s midterm elections (see chart 2). In North Carolina, Mr Tillis will probably be replaced by a less popular Republican nominee. In Texas, the state’s scandal-plagued hard-right attorney-general leads primary polls by double digits, taking advantage of the president’s attacks on the incumbent senator, “hopeless” John Cornyn (to use Mr Trump’s epithet). The fracas substantially improves Democrats’ chances of winning the two states, which are key to their Senate prospects.
Mr Trump has made himself inextricable from the Republican Party. This gives him a lot of power. But from a tactical point of view, he can still be a liability for his party.
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