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- [00:00]
Stephen Fowler
This message comes from NPR sponsor Carvana. Carvana believes selling your car should be refreshingly simple. Enter your license plate or vin, get a real offer down to the penny and schedule a pickup on your time.
- [00:13]
Domenico Montanaro
No surprises.
- [00:14]
Stephen Fowler
Sell your car today@carvana.com pickup fees may apply.
- [00:19]
Tamara Keith
Hey there, it's Tam. And if the NPR Politics podcast is part of your daily ritual, you can make it official on the NPR app. You will hear about every episode. The moment it's read, turn on notifications and we will handle the rest. To get there, download the NPR app today. Okay, here's the show. Hey there. It's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover politics.
- [00:48]
Stephen Fowler
I'm Stephen Fowler. I also cover politics.
- [00:51]
Domenico Montanaro
And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent.
- [00:54]
Tamara Keith
And today on the show, President Trump's retribution campaign notches another win. Republican Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky was defeated by a Trump backed challenger. And in Texas, the president finally endorsed a Republican Senate candidate and it's not the incumbent. So, Stephen, let's start with that election and Congressman Massie's loss. Was it a surprise?
- [01:19]
Stephen Fowler
No. The writing was on the truth social wall for a long time. When you look at the way the Republican Party has operated since Trump returned to power, the there has been very little room for dissent and some very notable examples of said dissent. With Massie, you had the push to release the Epstein files where he was on the wrong side of Trump. You have the Iran war and other military actions where he's on the wrong side of Trump. You even had him as one of the few people to vote against the one big beautiful bill, act on the Republican side, again, on the wrong side of Trump. So at a time when the Republican Party is almost completely unified in lockstep with President Trump, we are seeing the few people past and present that have had those gaps finally have the primary reckoning with voters who say they like what Trump says.
- [02:12]
Domenico Montanaro
And the reality is when Trump targets you in a Republican primary, you're probably in trouble. And you know, we saw millions of dollars, tens of millions of dollars in ads unleashed in this race, $33 million spent on TV ads according to our partner Ad Impact, which tracks ads. And they say that is the most ever for a House primary. So a really, you know, unbelievable amount of money that was just pouring in to try to defeat Massie. And if you ask any member of Congress, the last thing that they want to have to be doing because they're up for reelection every two years is, is to have to be walking the Hallways on the phone with donors trying to raise money for reelection, which is why so many seats have become safer and why so many Republicans just don't cross Trump. They don't want the trouble.
- [03:01]
Tamara Keith
Yeah. And this was for Trump, very important because it is an exertion of his power. And he is never more powerful than he is in a Republican primary in a red state. But that exertion of power then sends a signal to other Republicans, don't get out of line.
- [03:21]
Domenico Montanaro
Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, we saw that exertion of power on Saturday when it came to incumbent Bill Cassidy, the senator in Louisiana who lost his primary and didn't get through to the runoff. We saw it in Georgia as well on Tuesday night in Alabama. Georgia, I think, is the most fascinating one because that's a state with a very conservative Republican electorate, the primary electorate, but a very middle of the road, moderate, purple general election electorate. It's a state with two Democratic incumbent senators, one of which, Jon Ossoff, is up for reelection and is a top Republican target. But now Republicans have another four weeks of trying to out MAGA each other as they had been in the primary.
- [04:06]
Tamara Keith
Yeah. Stephen, let's talk about Georgia. What did you learn from those primaries?
- [04:13]
Stephen Fowler
Well, like Domenico said, there's another four weeks of a very expensive primary contest, the U.S. senate race. And also in the governor's race, Trump endorsed the sitting Lieutenant governor, Bert Jones, who is very loyal to Trump. But then a few months ago, you had this billionaire health care executive, Rick Jackson, come out of nowhere, spend, you know, well, north of $80 million of his own money so far to convince Georgia Republican voters that actually he is the pro Trump guy. And, and in many ways it worked because the two of them are now heading to a runoff and just had complete market saturation over the airways and the flyers in my mailbox from all the campaign ads. And the big takeaway, even as Georgia is the purple state with the split electorate, as you mentioned, we are heading towards more weeks of Trump, Trump, Trump.
- [05:10]
Domenico Montanaro
In the gubernatorial primary, you had people who spoke out against Trump or at least didn't go along with what Trump wanted. And Brad Raffensperger, the Secretary of State in the state who Trump tried to pressure to get to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, he did not go along. He wound up not even making it to the runoff in the gubernatorial primary on the Republican side and on the Democratic side, you had former Lt. Gov. Jeff Duncan, who also spoke out against Trump and he had been a Republican in 2020 election. He also did not qualify for for the runoff.
- [05:43]
Tamara Keith
You could get the impression that President Trump is all powerful from this, but I don't think that that's necessarily truly the lesson.
- [05:52]
Domenico Montanaro
No, it's not. In fact, there's probably some kind of superhero kind of metaphor here where you've got somebody who is all powerful on half of the planet, and then as soon as he crosses a line to the other side of the planet, he sort of shrivels and shrinks because, frankly, half the country is strongly disapproving of the job that Trump is doing. He is a main motivator for why Democrats have so much strength when it comes to looking down the line here to November. Swing states, swing districts, Democrats have been having victory after victory in special elections, overperforming. And you know, they're just waiting to go after some of these candidates who are hugging Trump closely. Even though Trump has highly negative disapproval ratings in the country, his economic approval is in the 30s. But because we're talking about this one little world of the Republican primary, he looks all powerful. But there's a whole different set of elections coming in a few months.
- [06:57]
Tamara Keith
Stephen, while we're still in Georgia, can you talk about the lessons that might be taken away from what we saw on the Democratic side?
- [07:05]
Stephen Fowler
Well, Jon Ossoff did not have a primary challenger, so he has just steadily been fundraising a massive war chest for the that expensive November contest. In the governor's race, you actually didn't have a runoff. Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms won outright even though she had many challengers. She had people within the party express concern that Bottoms did not run for a second term as the mayor of Atlanta and have the Republican attacks that have already come out over Bottoms leadership of the city during 2020, when there were a lot of racial justice protests and other issues. But it was a pretty decisive victory for her. And it makes sense when you look at the overall turnout of the primary Democrats, especially black Democrats, older Democrats turned out in force and very much outvoted Republicans, which has Democrats very excited about what that means for them heading into November.
- [08:05]
Tamara Keith
Wait, so just so I'm clear on this, you're saying that more Democrats turned out in these primaries where there weren't really big contests, then turned out in the Republican primaries where there were these big contests.
- [08:18]
Stephen Fowler
Tens of millions of more dollars were spent on the Republican side and 160,000 or so more votes came on the Democratic side. So even with all of that attention and all of the intrigue and contest, Democrats showed up in force like they have in basically every other state that's had a midterm so far this year and in previous special elections and everything for the last year and a half.
- [08:45]
Domenico Montanaro
And that's because Democrats are fired up in many respects to vote this fall, as the party out of power usually is in a president's first midterms.
- [08:55]
Tamara Keith
All right, we're going to take a quick break, and we'll have more in a moment
- [09:00]
Domenico Montanaro
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- [09:03]
Stephen Fowler
We cover everything from politics to the economy to the world, but every story starts with a question.
- [09:10]
Domenico Montanaro
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- [09:11]
Stephen Fowler
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- [09:18]
Domenico Montanaro
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- [09:23]
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- [09:57]
Tamara Keith
we're back and the wait is finally over for a Trump endorsement in the Republican Senate primary in Texas. After what had to have been the longest will he or won't he saga, Trump threw his support behind Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton over incumbent Senator John Cornyn. Domenico, how does that endorsement, just one week before the runoff, affect this race?
- [10:22]
Domenico Montanaro
Yeah, it's amazing. Major thing in this race, especially since you've seen, as we talked about, how much Trump's endorsement has mattered in Republican primaries. And you know, the smart money early on was on that Trump would endorse Cornyn potentially because you have a lot of operatives close to Trump who work with Cornyn. The thinking was that they didn't want to have a long, drawn out battle to promote someone like Ken Paxton, who is controversial in the state and could make the state more likely for Democrats to win than if the incumbent, John Cornyn, was the person on the ballot again. But the longer this went on, it became clear that Trump probably wasn't going to endorse anyone and then surprised everyone by endorsing Paxton and flipping the script. And that certainly could be the thing that winds up propelling Paxton here. Maybe the White House was seeing internal polling showing Paxton leading anyway, and Trump wanted to get out ahead of that and look like he was with the winner. But Paxton made A really savvy move in this, according to Republicans that I talked to who said that when he came out and endorsed the Save America act, which not only requires photo ID to vote, but you would need birth certificate or passport to even register to vote, that when he came out and did that, it was for that audience of one. Trump really liked his fire and that he was going to back whatever it is that Trump wanted. And he wants that fealty and I think feeling himself frankly this month. And he's looking for a sweep during his revenge tour here in the month of May. Not that he necessarily dislikes John Cornyn, but he feels like Paxton is a stronger MAGA warrior.
- [12:01]
Tamara Keith
Yeah, I mean, Cornyn is more an establishment Republican figure. He's been in the Senate a really long time. And I mean, Stephen, we have been, you especially have been tracking President Trump's endorsements and this one comes pretty late. And as Domenico alluded to, at a point where polls were starting to show that Paxton was pulling ahead, potentially it's
- [12:27]
Stephen Fowler
a little bit of a chicken and the egg situation. Is it possible that Paxton was going to prevail without Trump's endorsement? Yes. Will Trump's endorsement help Paxton prevail? Probably also, yes. But you're right. In 2026 especially, Trump's endorsements have come way earlier in the primary process. They have focused on safe incumbents. And in the case of open races, he's done things to clear the field to really make sure that there aren't any challengers for the people that he likes. And then you have these few examples of those that have still wronged him in some way that he has gone after full force. So it's been surprising that there's been several weeks of this additional kind of knockdown, drag out fight for the runoff instead of settling it like he said, he posted on Truth Social the day after the primary saying this race should end now and then he didn't actually pull the trigger on endorsing anyone. So what this does same with the Georgia runoffs is just make more time, more money, more energy on Republican infighting and has Republicans worried about what that could do for the race in November.
- [13:38]
Domenico Montanaro
I was going to say, let's be clear, this is going to put Texas on the map now as a real potential Democratic takeover if Paxton winds up winning. You know, you'd probably still say Paxton would be the slight favorite against State Representative James, telling the Democrat, only because this is Texas and there's been no Democrat that's won statewide since 1994. And you better believe that the dump truck of money is going to be backed up on this race big time. If you live in Texas, our apologies for the amount of political activity you are going to see because the Republican governor there, Greg Abbott, I'm told, is not going to let this state go blue without a big, big fight. And now that Trump has put his endorsement on Paxton, he's got a lot of skin in this game, too. And that means that that hundreds of millions of dollars that are in his super pac, MAGA Inc. A lot of that money might be sucked right into Texas.
- [14:30]
Tamara Keith
Well, I mean, that's what people in Texas might want. That's what Republican candidates all over the country want. And it's not clear where Trump is actually going to spend that money in the end. That's one of the big mysteries of this campaign season.
- [14:47]
Domenico Montanaro
Well, a lot of operatives that I talked to said that they just, they're slapping their foreheads a little bit at this move because the fact that you have all this money in MAGA Inc. That could be used to try to shore up some of those swing state and swing seat Republicans in a lot of places. And what's expected to be a pretty narrow potential takeover for Democrats if they do win the House. But, you know, I don't know that Trump really cares.
- [15:11]
Tamara Keith
Yeah. I want to talk about forms of consequences here of what's been happening in the primaries because it turns out primaries are not. But when races finish, that's voters get the final say in November. So I want to start first with, you know, we've been talking about all of these candidates who, Republican candidates who have been like out competing each other to be like, no, I'm the most Trump loyal candidate. No, I'm the most Trump loyal candidate. But as we said, President Trump has record low approval ratings. So is there a risk that things that happen in the primary could have consequences in the general election?
- [15:48]
Domenico Montanaro
I think that the primary is going to have consequences in a couple ways. Number one, it's going to have consequences in a general election if these MAGA candidates or Republican candidates out MAGA each other continue to sound out of step with the rest of the country. And the way that you poll in some of these positions, whether it's on the economy or immigration or whatnot, how they make their message is going to be really important to see how they're able to thread that needle. Secondly, now you've got a lot of yolo, you know, members of Congress who are left who aren't going to necessarily care about not crossing Trump Considering that they're no longer going to be there. I mean, Massey said, hey, I got seven more months left. And he cited the Epstein files, which he forced a lot of the millions of pages to be released. They said that, you know, we took down a prince and several prominent people and I got seven months left. So he's seeming like he's going to go ahead and do whatever it is that he feels like he's going to do and make Trump's life even more difficult over these next several months. You've got people like Thom Tillis, who's retiring senator from North Carolina, who's been speaking out repeatedly, especially against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. And you know, when you think about somebody like Marjorie Taylor Greene, who's already been speaking out from Georgia, Lauren Boebert now who Trump is going after, you've got a contingent of firebrands who Trump is going to have his hands full with.
- [17:11]
Tamara Keith
Well, and Senator Cassidy from Louisiana, not a firebrand, but immediately after losing his primary, went and voted with Democrats on a war powers resolution. So there are potential real consequences there for the power the president is able to exert. When there are people who owe you nothing and actually have a big reason to have a grudge and they're still in office and the margins are as narrow as they are, there are real consequences for the president.
- [17:39]
Stephen Fowler
And Domenico called it the YOLO caucus. I know that means you only live once, but in this case it's you only lose once you're already out. There's also a number of House Republicans and senators, Republicans that have already said that they are retiring or running for a different office in their state. So you potentially have this consequence and scenario where for the rest of this year you could see a lot more willingness to do things differently in Congress than they have the last two years or not. And then when there's potentially Democratic power coming in, the caucus that will be there for Republicans is going to look very, very different than it did two years ago or 10 years ago.
- [18:21]
Domenico Montanaro
And it could have real electoral consequences. I mean, we talked a little bit about Georgia, but think about a place like Pennsylvania, which has had a lot of bellwether, you know, seats. It's a bellwether state. And its governor, Josh Shapiro, the Democrat there, backed several Democratic candidates who he feels are the kind of Democratic candidates who can win this fall. He's got his eye on a potential 20, 28 presidential run, all four of the that he backed. One, there are three toss up seats in the state and one seat in particular the 7th Congressional District features Ryan McKenzie, who's a Republican freshman incumbent. Trump won this district by just three points in the Lehigh Valley in 2024. He lost it narrowly in 2020, a real swing seat. And Shapiro's candidate in that race, Bob Brooks, he's the president of the firefighters union statewide. He wound up winning. And MacKenzie's message and Brooks's message, I think are going ones that we're talking about as it relates to the rest of the country because Republicans are facing this uphill battle when it comes to the economy. Mackenzie has been talking about trying to fight for working class families, voting for tax cuts, trying to expand health savings accounts while still maintaining a hard line on immigration. Brooks, on the other hand, is waging a very left wing, populist working class campaign. And there's a bunch of those kinds of Democratic candidates who've cropped up across the country. And I think it's going to be notable for which of those kinds of messages win out in this kind of environment. And also, of course, for some of that 2028 intrigue and Josh Shapiro strength.
- [19:57]
Tamara Keith
Yeah. And we should say that the primary in Pennsylvania was also yesterday. Yes. So we are seeing that develop. All right. Well, there is a lot for us to keep watching as this election year unfolds, but we're going to leave it there for today. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover politics.
- [20:12]
Stephen Fowler
I'm Steven Fowler. I also cover politics.
- [20:14]
Domenico Montanaro
And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent.
- [20:17]
Tamara Keith
And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics podcast.
- [20:28]
NPR Sponsor/Advertiser
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