Tuesday, June 2, brought us probably the most surprising event of the 2026 midterms so far – a Trump-endorsed candidate losing a primary.
Randy Feenstra, a sitting U.S. representative from Iowa, lost in his primary bid for governor to businessman Zach Lahn by less than 2,000 votes. The president had endorsed Feenstra and had every reason to be confident this would tip the balance in his favor, given recent wins by Trump-endorsed primary candidates around the country.
Late last month in Texas, longtime incumbent Senator John Cornyn came up short in his primary bid, losing to Trump-endorsed former state attorney general Ken Paxton. Earlier in May, five Indiana state representatives who had rebuffed the president’s demands to push forward a redistricting scheme that favored Republicans fell at the polls after Trump made a push to oust as many of them as possible. And in Louisiana, Sen. Bill Cassidy, who voted to convict Trump in his 2021 impeachment trial, failed to make the state’s runoff between the top two primary finishers.
These events provided election watchers confirmation that Trump’s endorsement still carries enormous weight in the 2026 GOP, despite the president’s sinking popularity with the electorate at large.
Iowa’s results raise questions of whether the president’s credibility may finally be unraveling among midwestern Republican voters, or whether Iowa is a special case. Lahn’s alignment with the MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) movement, led by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., gives him a different sort of credibility with deep red voters and may have played a role in making him more competitive against a Trump-backed candidate.
California is awaiting results in the governor’s race, where the state’s open primary had given Republicans hope of capturing the top two spots and ending the race prematurely for Democrats. However, as of June 4 the leading two candidates were Republican Steve Hilton and Democrat Xavier Becerra, with the third-place candidate, Democrat Tom Steyer, trailing by six points. This all but guarantees voters will face a traditional choice between a Democrat and a Republican in November.
The overarching question posed by the dominance of Trump-backed candidates is: can they win in the general election?
There is evidence that primary voters are more ideologically polarized than general election voters, which puts many candidates in an awkward position – they must emphasize party loyalty and deep ideological bona fides to succeed in the primary, and then moderate their appeal to succeed in the general election. How much they need to moderate depends on the composition of their district.
All of this is taking place against the backdrop of aggressive redistricting efforts which are designed to solidify districts in favor of the party in control of the map-making process, although what effects these will actually achieve remain to be seen. Some election watchers have expressed concern that 2026’s gerrymandering legislatures have relied on voting tallies from 2024, that the margin of advantage in new districts will be unsustainably thin, and that swing voters may have realigned since the last election. This may lead to unintended consequences for the party that redrew the boundaries.
IEC continues to monitor the results of primaries across the country and will provide support for candidates with a solid voting record of merit shop support, as well as candidates in competitive districts who can help preserve a Republican majority. However, our Government Affairs team is also keeping track of small pockets of pro-union/anti-merit shop sentiment in the GOP and emphasizing the power of the merit shop constituency wherever possible.
Stay tuned for further updates as we get closer to November.