With the nominations of Sen. Darline Graham in South Carolina and of Mike Mazzei for governor of Oklahoma, President Donald Trump’s strength in the GOP is unchallengeable.
Both these nominations would have been won by the other candidates if President Trump had endorsed them.
In South Carolina, the alternative was U.S. House Rep. Ralph Norman, a solid, pro-Trump conservative. If President Trump had endorsed Rep. Norman, he would probably would have won. However, President Trump’s loyalty to his close friend, the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, led him to go all-in for Graham’s sister, and it worked.
In Oklahoma, the story is even clearer. Mazzei only defeated Attorney General Gertner Drummond by 2,047 votes out of 371,000 cast. If President Trump had endorsed Drummond, he would have won. Mazzei is a businessman, former state senator, and former Budget Director for the Republican governor.
These two final primary nomination victories for President Trump give him a 97 percent win rate for Republican nominations in 2026. That level of confirmed presidential preference for House and Senate nominations has never ever occurred in the history of the United States. In fact, there is no leader — including Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, both Roosevelts, and Ronald Reagan — who had this level of influence in their own party.
President Trump’s popularity among Republicans was captured in an Aug. 26 CNN poll that showed 53 percent of Republicans picked Trump as their most admired president, 18 percent picked Reagan and 8 percent picked Lincoln.
This depth of support for President Trump grows out of several factors.
For many Republicans, he is the first leader to fully take on the weird ideas of the left. His comment at the State of the Union this year, “These people are crazy. I’m telling you. They’re crazy.” Resonated with millions of conservatives who had been longing for someone to stand up to the arrogance and craziness of the modern left.
President Trump’s courage in coming back after enduring two impeachment attempts, four efforts to put him in jail, and three assassination attempts earned him the support of millions of people who may not always be comfortable with his style or with a particular action or proposal.
The Iconic moment in Butler, Penn., when he survived providentially by moving his head one split-second before he would have been killed and then insisted on standing up and walking off stage with blood running down his face — his fist in the air yelling, “fight, fight, fight” — earned him the loyalty of millions of Americans eager for a courageous leader.
President Trump clearly has a base he can turn out for Republicans and conservatives loyal to and supportive of him.
However, he must now explain his achievements and his policies with sufficient clarity and repetition that millions of independents decide he represents a better bet for the future than the big government socialist Democrats and their nominees. Finally, he must make it easy for rational moderate Democrats to decide they can’t stand the left-wing crazies and they have to be for the Republicans. In several states, you will see a “Democrats for X” organization spring up in September as the Democratic nominees’ extremism sinks in.
President Trump is already one of the most consequential presidents in American history. He has taken on the entire left, including its propaganda media, and he is clearly grinding them down and steadily making policy gains that would have been thought impossible a decade ago.
I have no hesitation in saying President Trump ranks among the most powerful and effective presidents in American history.
If he can win back the moderates, make it easy for disaffected Democrats to cross over to help the Republicans, and offer a positive vision of what he will do to make America and Americans’ lives better when his team wins in November, then he will move into the rank just below President George Washington and President Lincoln.
With a victory in November, President Trump will have two years to continue to move America and the world to a better place.
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"....he represents a better bet for the future than the big government socialist Democrats and their nominees." Only the 'walking dead' have a varying opinion on that! The scary thing is, however, there are far too many 'walking dead' that WILL vote for some form of Socialism/Communism to have governing power in America! Wanna see MAGA continue, then the ENTIRE population that supports President Trump better get themselves, and as many others they can, out to VOTE in the coming election! As Ripley would say, "BELIEVE IT OR NOT."