For months throughout the 2020 primary season, Trump boasted of his undefeated record in the Republican primaries. “64-0,” his campaign manager, Brad Parscale, tweeted on June 3. “That’s the record of federal candidates in the primaries or special elections after they’ve been endorsed by @realdonaldtrump this cycle. Unbeaten. Without precedents.”
Since that tweet, Trump-backed candidates have been on the losing side of four Republican primaries, falling short in Colorado, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Virginia. Now Tuesday’s contests bring three other high-profile second-round contests that pit Trump against the pillars of the local Republican Party.
The most high-profile career is in Alabama, where Jeff Sessions, the former attorney general, has a good chance of regaining the Senate seat he held for 20 years. Trump, still embittered by Sessions’ decision to withdraw from the Justice Department investigation into Russian electoral interference, endorsed Tommy Tuberville, the former soccer coach at Auburn University.
A Sessions victory would represent a big black eye for Trump. There is no Republican primary candidate for whom he has campaigned more this year than Mr. Tuberville. Along with the many tweets denouncing Mr. Sessions, Mr. Trump planned and then canceled an outdoor campaign rally with the former coach and made a phone call Monday night promoting Mr. Tuberville.
In Texas, Trump backed a couple of House contests to be decided Tuesday.
In the Panhandle, he’s backing Ronny Jackson, his former White House doctor, against Josh Winegarner, a local lobbyist backed by Representative Mac Thornberry, who is retiring after 13 terms. The main winner will surely come to Congress: the district is among the most Republican in the country.
And in Southwest Texas, the president backed Tony Gonzales, a former Navy cryptologist, against Raúl Reyes, a former Air Force officer who has the backing of Senator Ted Cruz. Rep Will Hurd, who narrowly won reelection in 2018, chose to retire rather than compete in another race against Gina Ortiz Jones, a Democrat. Mr. Hurd also endorsed Mr. Gonzales.
Of course, if there is any place where Mr. Trump might be nervous about an endorsement, it would be Alabama. It was there, in 2017, that he found himself on the losing end of the same Senate race twice: first, when Roy Moore defeated designated senator Luther Strange in the primaries to replace Mr. Sessions, and then again when Mr. Moore lost the general election to Doug Jones, a Democrat, who awaits the winner of the Tuberville-Sessions race.
