Trump's Endorsement Losses Reach Double Figures After Florida and Arizona

Three Trump-backed Republicans lost on the same night, and the 2026 tally is now into double figures - as many as 2018, 2020 and 2024 put together. That sounds like a collapse until you see the other number: Ballotpedia still puts his primary endorsement success rate at 96%. Here's how both can be true, where the losses have clustered, and which races decide whether this becomes his worst cycle on record.

Verified key facts

• Representative Cory Mills lost the Republican primary in Florida's 7th District and Catalina Lauf lost in the 19th, according to Newsweek.
• Wyoming Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder lost the state's Republican gubernatorial primary, Newsweek reported.
• The Washington Post reported that ten Trump-endorsed candidates for Congress or statewide office have now lost 2026 primaries, equal to the total across 2018, 2020 and 2024.
• CNN reported the breakdown as five gubernatorial primaries, four House seats and one attorney general race.
• Trump's worst previous cycle was 2022, when eleven endorsees lost, according to Deseret News.
• Ballotpedia puts Trump's 2026 primary endorsement success rate at 96 per cent, per the Washington Examiner.

Three Defeats in a Single Night

Tuesday's primaries in Florida, Wyoming and Alaska delivered the most concentrated run of endorsement defeats President Donald Trump has suffered in this cycle. Newsweek reported that Representative Cory Mills was beaten in the Republican primary for Florida's 7th Congressional District and that Catalina Lauf lost the nomination contest in the state's 19th District.

In Wyoming, Megan Degenfelder, the state's Superintendent of Public Instruction and a Trump endorsee, fell short in the Republican gubernatorial primary. Three losses in one evening is unusual: the president's endorsement has generally travelled well in closed Republican contests, and the pattern of this August has been the exception rather than the rule.

Alaska also voted on Tuesday, completing a three-state night that was watched less for any individual result than for what the aggregate would show about the durability of presidential endorsements this late in a primary calendar.

A Tally That Now Matches Three Cycles Combined

The Washington Post reported that ten candidates Trump endorsed for Congress or statewide office have now been rejected by Republican primary voters in 2026 - the same number who lost across the 2018, 2020 and 2024 primaries put together. That comparison is the reason the tally is being read as a signal rather than as noise.

Counts vary by methodology. Newsweek put the cycle total at twelve after Tuesday, a figure that appears to include races the Post's narrower statewide-and-congressional definition excludes. Deseret News noted that Trump's worst showing remains 2022, when eleven of his endorsees lost, which leaves this cycle within a seat or two of the record depending on whose ledger is used.

Where the Losses Have Landed

CNN broke the defeats down as five gubernatorial primaries, four House seats and one attorney general race. The weighting towards governorships matters, because those are the contests in which a candidate's own record in state government is most exposed and hardest for a national endorsement to paper over.

House losses have followed a similar logic. Where a Trump-backed candidate has been carrying a controversy or a thin local record, primary electorates have shown themselves willing to pick the alternative, even when the alternative has no national profile at all.

Gubernatorial primaries also tend to attract stronger fields. A sitting state official with a decade of local relationships is a harder opponent than a first-time congressional candidate, and five of the ten defeats came in exactly that kind of contest.

The Counter-Argument: A 96 Per Cent Success Rate

The raw loss count is not the whole picture, and the Trump operation has been quick to say so. The Washington Examiner reported that Ballotpedia puts the president's 2026 primary endorsement success rate at 96 per cent, a figure that reflects the sheer volume of endorsements issued rather than any change in their potency.

Both things can be true at once. A record number of endorsements will produce a record number of defeats even if the hit rate is unchanged, and the arithmetic that produces ten losses also produces several hundred wins. What the losses show is where the endorsement stops being decisive, not that it has stopped working.

Why Local Records Are Beating National Endorsements

The Washington Post characterised the August run of defeats as exposing the limits of the president's ability to carry candidates past local opposition, personal controversy or questions about their fitness for office. That is a narrower claim than a collapse in influence, and it fits the pattern of the individual races.

In several contests the winning Republican ran to the same ideological ground as the endorsed candidate. The dividing line was not policy but whether primary voters trusted the person in front of them, which is the one variable an endorsement from Washington cannot supply.

There is a timing element too. Endorsements issued early can shape a field before it forms, deterring challengers and consolidating donors. Several of this cycle's losses came in races where the endorsement arrived after a strong local candidate was already established, at which point it functions as a preference rather than a clearing signal.

Florida Sends Two Different Signals

Florida produced results pointing in opposite directions on the same night. Two Trump endorsees lost their congressional primaries, but Representative Byron Donalds, also Trump-backed, won the Republican gubernatorial nomination on a platform that included restrictions on data-centre construction, according to CNBC's reporting on the emerging politics of that issue.

Fox News reported that the evening also produced a significant victory for a socialist candidate in a Florida Democratic contest. Taken together, the state delivered a night in which neither party's establishment could claim the electorate had simply confirmed its preferences.

Donalds's win is the more instructive of the two Florida outcomes for anyone reading the night as a referendum. He was Trump-endorsed, he won comfortably, and he did so on a platform with a distinct local plank, which is close to the profile of the endorsees who have generally prevailed this year.

The September Primaries That Will Settle the Count

A handful of states have yet to vote, and with the cycle total sitting one or two defeats short of the 2022 record depending on the count used, those remaining contests will decide whether 2026 becomes the worst primary season for Trump-backed candidates on record.

The more consequential test arrives afterwards. Several of the Republicans who beat a Trump endorsee now face general elections in competitive seats, and how the president campaigns for candidates he did not choose will say more about the state of the coalition than the primary ledger does.

Sources

• The Washington Post - Three more Trump-endorsed candidates lose their primaries
• Newsweek - Donald Trump Suffers Worst Night for Endorsements of 2026 Cycle
• CNN Politics - Losses are piling up for Trump-backed candidates
• Deseret News - Trump's endorsement record takes a hit as midterm primaries near an end
• Washington Examiner - Here are the Trump-backed Republicans who have lost in 2026
• Fox News - Socialists capture major Florida victory on hit-or-miss night for Trump-endorsed primary candidates