Trump-Backed Candidates Flop Big-Time in Several Republican Primaries

Trump’s anti-Midas touch showed up strong on Tuesday, as three Trump-endorsed candidates lost bigly in their primaries in Utah, Colorado, and South Carolina. The 0 for 3 showing suggests that even in an election year where Trump is the presumptive Republican nominee, his endorsement is about as valuable as a Beanie Baby with its tag cut off.

In Utah, Trump had endorsed Riverton Mayor Trent Staggs to replace Senator Mitt Romney, despite polls showing Staggs’s victory was a total long shot. Trump’s stain of approval arrived just days before the primary, and Staggs ultimately received 30 percent of the vote—a big bump from previous polling data but certainly not a close race. Staggs’s winning competitor, moderate Republican Representative John Curtis, is heavily favored to win in November.

Conservative activist Jeff Crank also beat out Dave Williams in Colorado’s 5th congressional district. Trump had endorsed Williams, the state’s Republican Party chair and former state representative who earlier this month called for people to burn Pride flags and is under Federal Election Commission investigation for claims he used Republican Party money to fund his dead-in-the-water campaign. Instead of Pride flags burning this month, it was Williams’s campaign that was burned to a crisp: Crank ate Williams for lunch, pulling in 68 percent of the vote.

Trump had endorsed televangelist preacher Mark Burns in South Carolina’s 3rd congressional district against Air National Guard Lieutenant Colonel and board-certified nurse practitioner Sheri Biggs. Burns and Biggs battled it out in a runoff after each candidate pulled in 50 percent of the vote in their initial primaries. Burns had fashioned himself in Trump’s image, largely basing his campaign around repeating generic Trump talking points and claiming to be Trump’s pastor. Biggs, meanwhile, ran a conservative campaign that also aligns with Trump’s platform but adopted a less robotic tone. Turns out being a human still matters for conservative voters, as Biggs won the primary runoff 51 percent to Burns’s 49 percent.

As Mediaite notes, Trump had endorsed 15 people ahead of their primaries on Tuesday—12 of whom ran unopposed, while the three who faced off against actual competitors got roundly kicked to the curb.