During a meeting with her GOP House members last month, House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-NY) pitched her colleagues on a potent fundraising tool: a digital “Trump badge.”
Stefanik—a notorious Trump detractor turned disciple—reportedly told lawmakers that they can deploy the badge if they have endorsed former President Donald Trump, and boasted that the badge boosted her digital fundraising by 25 percent. She even offered to help her colleagues get their own digital sticker.
Stefanik’s proposal distills just how powerful—how transactional—Trump endorsements have become, both with members making them for Trump and Trump making them for members. He’s been indicted four times, married three times, impeached twice, and led one attack on the U.S. Capitol—and yet Republican members of Congress are tripping over themselves to endorse Trump. And they’re even more desperate to get his endorsement.
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Trump’s support has always been powerful in GOP primaries, even if he’s known to overstate its impact and juice the numbers by backing Republicans who are clearly the favorites (or running unopposed) from time to time.
But these days, Trump’s endorsement seems to be more powerful than ever. And even members endorsing Trump are finding a political benefit. That flow of fundraising dollars is an important factor for congressional Republicans, perhaps just as important as staying in the good graces of the vindictive former president and his rabid MAGA base.
This dynamic isn’t exactly new to congressional races; Trump’s outsized influence has long played in the GOP. But in 2024, with the former president back on the ballot, Trump’s grip on Republican elections is clearly tighter than ever—and the numbers show it.
In the presidential race, Trump has the endorsement of more than 90 House Republicans before a single vote is cast. Meanwhile, Ron DeSantis is sitting at just five endorsements from members of Congress: Rep. Bob Good (R-VA), Rep. Laurel Lee (R-FL), Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), Rep. Rich McCormick (R-GA), and Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas). Nikki Haley has just one congressional endorsement: Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC).
Of course, that’s just members endorsing Trump. Trump giving his blessing is even more influential, and Republicans are once again desperate to get his backing.
Perhaps no election this cycle has displayed this dynamic better than the race to unseat Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) in a slightly Republican district. Republicans have been hungry to knock out Kaptur for years. But last cycle they took a swing and missed with the Trump-backed J.R. Majewski—known widely as a terrible candidate who lied about his military record.
This year, the GOP is trying again with a more promising pick: Craig Riedel, a former state representative with nearly three decades’ experience in Ohio’s all-important steel industry.
There’s just one problem: Riedel got caught on tape trash-talking Trump.
Earlier this month, right-wing activist Charlie Kirk posted audio of Riedel insisting he was neither endorsing Trump, nor seeking a Trump endorsement.
“I don’t like the way he communicates. I think he is arrogant,” Riedel said in the clip. “I don’t like the way he calls people names. I don’t think that’s very becoming of a president.”
The explosive audio quickly blew up the primary, as Ohio Republicans are now reportedly scrambling to support Majewski—or searching for a new candidate entirely. Meanwhile, top GOP officials are begging Trump not to endorse Majewski again, which could both lock-in a Majewski primary win and, in turn, doom a Republican flip.
Even more revealing about the importance of backing Trump is that Riedel is now shamelessly trying to clean up his mess. The day the audio leaked, Riedel issued a Trump endorsement and has since clapped back at Majewski for calling Trump an “idiot.” He’s also spending $10,000 on ads on Fox News over a 1,000 miles away in West Palm Beach, Florida—where Trump calls Mar-A-Lago home.
Former President Donald Trump
Mike Segar/ReutersIt’s a lot of drama, but staying on Trump’s good side has proven worth it in other Buckeye State elections. During the 2022 Ohio Senate race—which featured a wide-open GOP primary to fill retiring Sen. Rob Portman’s seat—Trump inserted himself into the election by backing the eventual winner: J.D. Vance.
With Trump’s blessing, Vance won the primary by about eight percentage points and eked out a general election victory against former Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH).
Vance himself acknowledged the “very, very important” power of the Trump endorsement, especially in a red state like Ohio.
“Having seen this with a number of endorsements—from the Democratic side, on the Republican side—most endorsements will move votes, one or two points in a given direction,” Vance told The Daily Beast.
“Trump’s endorsement can actually win an election,” he said.
While Trump has not endorsed in the House primary yet this cycle, if the MAGA social media backlash to Riedel is an indication, any hopes he had of getting Trump’s stamp of approval are dead in the water.
“This could be an interesting test given the area that they’re running in to see if the endorsement carries more weight, or if it’s the man who has put on a suit every day and showed up at the statehouse for constituents,” Ohio Republican strategist Mehek Cooke told The Daily Beast.
Riedel and Majewski aren’t the only Ohioans competing for Trump’s affection. In the Ohio Senate primary, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Republican candidates Frank LaRose, the former Ohio Secretary of State, and businessman Bernie Moreno are bickering over the Trump endorsement.
LaRose accused Moreno of falsely claiming he would win the Trump endorsement. LaRose—another Trump opponent turned acolyte—said the former president planned to stay neutral in the race.
But LaRose wound up with egg on his face just a day later when Trump released a full-throated endorsement of Moreno.
The power of Trump’s endorsement is also being put to the test in a North Carolina GOP primary, where there is an open seat in the newly redrawn district. Republicans hope the race will be friendlier to the GOP this cycle, after Republicans made the district redder and Rep. Wiley Nickel (D-NC)—who represented much of the area before the redistricting—announced he would not seek re-election.
Earlier this month, Trump issued his “complete and total endorsement” for lobbyist and first-time candidate, Addison McDowell.
But Trump’s support was awkward for a few reasons.
First, McDowell had not yet announced his candidacy and only officially got into the race after Trump’s endorsement. (McDowell is already trumpeting Trump’s support though, highlighting the endorsement in his X, formerly known as Twitter, bio.)
Second, Trump snubbed his pick from last cycle, young MAGA up-and-comer Bo Hines, who is also in the race. Just days before, Trump seemingly anointed Hines as his chosen one at the New York Young Republican Club Gala. Hines even posted a now terribly cringe clip of Trump on Instagram, saying Hines would “be a congressman very shortly.”
But as Trump is known to do, apparently he changed his mind.
“You see this with Trump over the years is that he flails around endorses on a whim, oftentimes over somebody he’s endorsed and campaigned for just as recently as the last election,” North Carolina operative Morgan Jackson told The Daily Beast.
The cherry on top? Former Rep. Mark Walker (R-NC) is also vying for the seat. Trump privately offered to endorse Walker for a House run in 2021 in an effort to persuade him to drop his Senate bid against now Sen. Ted Budd (R-NC). But now, Walker is on the outside looking in, clinging to his former associations to Trump.
“Three of these candidates can say they’ve been endorsed by Donald Trump one way or the other,” Jackson said. “And so it’ll be interesting to see how each uses it.”
Hines endorsed Trump for president and McDowell has embraced the former president on social media. Walker has not endorsed a presidential pick yet this cycle, but in recent months he has declared that Trump was “not at fault” for Jan. 6 and touted his relationship with the former president.
But Trump doesn’t need these House candidates as much as they need Trump. As 2024 nears, Trump is already armed with scores of congressional endorsements. Even as he faces four criminal indictments and lags behind Nikki Haley in electability against President Joe Biden, Republican lawmakers seem to have arrived at the conclusion that standing with Trump is politically safer than enduring his wrath.
As of earlier this month, Trump had collected at least seven governors, 18 senators and over 80 House members’ endorsements. And many Republicans who had been hesitant to climb onto the Trump 2024 train have been strong-armed into getting on board.
One menacing post from Trump on his social media platform Truth Social told who senators who had not endorsed him—Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Trump’s former presidential opponent Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)—to be “very careful” because “stranger things have happened!!!”
The next day, Hawley was singing Trump’s praises to POLITICO.
“President Trump doesn’t need to worry. I’m with him,” Hawley said.
Cruz, for his part, has said he’s “staying out” of the presidential race. That may be at his own peril, however. Fellow hard-right Texan Chip Roy—a former chief of staff for Cruz—has broken with Trump by voting to certify the 2020 election results and has backed DeSantis in the presidential primary.
Trump is now putting out feelers via Truth Social for a Roy primary challenger (though his calls for a challenger were a little too late, as the filing deadline had just passed).
“Has any smart and energetic Republican in the Great State of Texas decided to run in the Primary against RINO Congressman, Chip Roy,” Trump said earlier this month. “For the right person, he is very beatable. If interested, let me know!!!”
It’s not just Republicans who recognize the power of Trump’s endorsement or his wrath. Democrats, too, see the effect he can play. As Democratic strategist Max Burns put it, in GOP primaries, the Trump endorsement isn’t just part of the conversation. “It is the conversation,” he told The Daily Beast.
Even incumbent Democratic Rep. Debbie Dingell saw last week how unpleasant Trump speaking out against you can be. Dingell, who has never been the most or least outspoken Democrat against Trump, apparently pissed off the former president when she criticized his “ROT IN HELL” Christmas message. So Trump turned around and trashed Dingell, claiming she was effusive to him after her husband—John Dingell, the longest serving member of Congress of all time—died. Trump attacked Debbie Dingell for being a hypocrite, saying she had privately thanked Trump for lowering the flags at the White House in honor of her husband’s death and “two months later” was back to attacking him. His attack was designed to lower Dingell’s standing among Democrats and Republicans. (It also, Dingell claimed, has had the effect in the past of producing people standing outside of her home with weapons.)
Dingell countered the attack on Saturday with a New York Times guest essay on the need to stand up to Trump in a civil way, reinforcing her bruised anti-Trump credentials.
Still, Democrats see all of this chaos in congressional races as a win. Republican pundits and politicians widely blamed “candidate quality” for costing the GOP the Senate and a wider margin in the House in the 2022 midterms. While Trump-backed candidates, like Vance, won, others like Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania or Blake Masters in Arizona flopped.
Burns said that Republicans are aware of the problem, they just “don’t have any power to stop it.”
“And that’s nothing but good news for Democrats, because when these candidates go before voters time and again, they’re shot down by sound margins,” he said.
In tight races, the dynamic presents candidates with a paradox. In the primary, Republicans must publicly court the former president’s favor to win. But once they do, the candidates are trapped when they try to distance themselves from the MAGA label in the general election.
“That’s the curse,” Burns told The Daily Beast. “That’s the devil’s bargain.”
