A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Joining us to break down last night's results and the part President Trump played is Jonah Goldberg. He is editor-in-chief of the conservative publication The Dispatch, and he's a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Jonah, I was just thinking how some of these primaries feel like a March Madness bracket to see which one advances to the next round. It seems pretty clear, though, that President Trump's grip on the Republican Party is pretty ironclad, though.
JONAH GOLDBERG: No, it definitely does. Instead of March Madness, I kind of think of that scene from "The Dark Knight" where the Joker breaks the pool cue and says, we're going to have tryouts, because he's forcing various Republicans to fight to the death just to prove their loyalty to him. And one of the things to keep in mind here is that Trump is losing political clout in the country with the median voter, right? He's unpopular. He's remarkably unpopular. He's losing support among Republicans. I mean, he's not - the median Republican still says they support him, though not on the economy.
But he still has an outsized amount of support among Republicans willing to turn out for a primary. And that has always been his superpower, is the ability to pick people off in primaries, because the threat - with all of the incumbency and gerrymandering and polarization in this country, the threat to reelection in very red places, and very blue places, is in the primary. Like, if you get the nomination, you're going to win. If John Cornyn had gotten the nomination in Texas, he would have won. If Massie had won in Kentucky, he would have won the general election 'cause these are very safe seats. And that's how Trump enforces discipline, is by threatening you at your only vulnerable spot, which is in primaries.
MARTÍNEZ: And any one of the candidates that got Trump's support, I mean, they're almost a lock at this point, aren't they?
GOLDBERG: Yeah. I mean, I bet you there's some testable propositions in some purplish places, but for the most part, yes. And, again, it's not because Trump is wildly popular. It's just that if you have enough clout among the primary electorate, which is a very, very small part of the actual American electorate - I mean, one of the things that the political scientists will tell you is that, you know, that the results of primaries are actually not very democratic. It's one of the reasons why we have more independents in this country than ever before. It's because the primaries produce candidates that are appealing to a very slim slice of the electorate, of the real base of the party, and then the normal voter is like, I hate these choices, and they don't want to align with either party. And so now independents outnumber both Republicans and Democrats, precisely because the primary system is messing things up so much.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. And despite the war in Iran, the economic situation, gas prices increasing, I mean, this continued support of Trump candidates, what does that say about a GOP voter right now?
GOLDBERG: Well, I think there are a lot of GOP voters who just - who say that they support Trump because, you know, they don't want to give in to the critics and all of that. Where Trump has gotten - I'd say the original sin of his second term politically has been they came out of the gate assuming that the marginal voter who was torn in the 2024 election between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump was full-on MAGA - you know, the Hispanic voter in southern Texas who voted Republican for the first time, you know, the young African American man in Ohio who voted Republican for the first time - when, in fact, most of those voters, those majority-making voters in those seven swing states, they were voting out of nostalgia for the pre-COVID economy of Trump's first term. And then Trump comes out of the gate with the mass deportation stuff and DOGE and all of these things, and these voters are like, this isn't what I voted for. Bring me the economy that I voted for. And that's why he's gotten into so much trouble.
MARTÍNEZ: One more thing, quickly - for the Republicans in Congress that weren't on the block this time around, what do you think that these results will mean for them if they want to oppose Trump in any way?
GOLDBERG: Oh, it's tough, right? By endorsing Paxton in Texas, Senate Republicans are furious. And by throwing Cassidy, the senator from Louisiana, under the bus, they're furious.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah.
GOLDBERG: So you actually could see more revolts.
MARTÍNEZ: Jonah Goldberg, editor-in-chief of the dispatch. Jonah, thanks.
GOLDBERG: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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