In 2016, President Donald Trump began one of the biggest political realignments in American politics. In the 2026 primaries, he will finish remaking the Republican Party in his image. But what that means in the midterm elections and beyond will be up to voters.
Recently, while admiring the roses in a compound for China’s top officials, the president professed hopes of cooperation with Chinese President Xi Jinping. But his messages back home were far from rosy and largely aimed at his own party.
Last month, the White House and its allies led a largely successful crusade to primary Indiana lawmakers that refused the president’s demands on redistricting. On Saturday, the MAGA retribution rampage continued in Louisiana, with Sen. Bill Cassidy losing his primary a half a decade on from voting to convict Trump after Jan. 6.
The president and his team did not take over the Republican Party so much as they took it out.
And on Tuesday, Rep. Thomas Massie lost the GOP primary in Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District. Massie’s strident libertarianism has tested the patience of many Republicans, but his political ending was likely due to his advocacy for Jeffrey Epstein’s victims, a cause that the MAGA base once championed.
The White House sent Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to Kentucky to campaign against Massie (with far better results than the international conflict Hegseth helped start). Even before the results came in, Trump attacked Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., for campaigning with Massie; the president also threatened to primary Boebert despite her district’s filing deadline having passed back in March.
Next in the president’s sights is Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. On Tuesday, Trump endorsed his opponent, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, ahead of next week’s runoff. While many thought the president would avoid the candidate most likely to create an expensive mess in the general election, Trump is emboldened against his own party with an insatiable appetite for destruction.
The president and his team did not take over the Republican Party so much as they took it out. There is no party independent of Trump anymore. MAGA is the brand, the man and the plan — it is wherever the president is on any given topic at any given time. In the past few months alone, MAGA has flip-flopped on spending, Epstein, wars abroad, gas prices and affordability.
Intraparty primary fights are nothing new in politics, and they are often a healthy aspect of democracy. At times these fights are waged on accountably over policy or ideology, or even the notion of losing touch with voters back home. But Trump’s primary battles seem to be based purely on loyalty. They say an elephant never forgets, but MAGA never forgives.
If the midterms do not go well for the president, there will be questions asked about a strategy of subtraction over addition.
But there could be consequences to this approach. Trump can stick the landing with the MAGA base, but he could still get into a sticky situation with Americans at large. Forgoing a big tent party that would win across the nation, many in the MAGA base are cheering as the president and his team take out another veteran Republican to instill a loyal stand-in. What is gold in a GOP primary, however, may turn to kryptonite in the general election.
Even as Trump completes his purge inside the GOP, he is at record low approval numbers. Both the electorate as a whole and demographics key to Trump’s 2024 win have soured on him. For Republicans in competitive general elections, embracing Trump could be like running to a fire not with water, but with kerosene — you may end up burning yourself.
If the midterms do not go well for the president, there will be questions asked about a strategy of subtraction over addition. MAGA’s targeting of Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., drove him out of a race that he could have won. Instead, most expect Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper to flip the seat.
Some strategists privately wish the president and his allies would focus more on fighting Democrats over their own party. Turning Point USA and Steve Bannon seem more focused on fighting Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., over his failure to get rid of the Senate filibuster. Instead of trying to elect more Republicans to the Senate, they are looking to damn the ones who are there.
Republicans have to grapple with the possibility that when the president reportedly said he doesn’t care about the midterms, he actually meant it. He seems far more focused on the 2020 election than 2026. Similarly, when he (inartfully) said he doesn’t care about Americans’ financial struggles, again he may have been telling the truth. And whatever he does or does not care about, the bigger problem is that president and his team continue to have no plan, ideas or legislative agenda for the economy.
Democracy built on revenge over results may entertain some, but it helps no one. And it may prove a disastrous plan to win elections.
Matthew Bartlett is an MS NOW political analyst. He served as a Trump appointee at the State Department in the first administration.