Ideology vs. Electability
The one number that explains Donald Trump’s hold on the GOP
Senator Bill Cassidy – check. Congressman Thomas Massie – check. Six of eight Indiana state senators – check. Senator John Cornyn – TBD. You may have noticed that President Trump has largely been successful in his 2026 revenge tour against his fellow Republicans.
This revenge has come in the form of primary challengers, often hand selected by the White House, to run against incumbents seen as disloyal to the president. That itself is not surprising. We know that the president demands absolute loyalty. But the eight incumbents who have lost their races didn’t do so by the single stroke of the president’s pen. It was the voters that turned them out of office.
None of these incumbents was a recent entrant to politics. They collectively held 112 years of experience in office between them. Only one of them was in their first term. Everyone else has been re-nominated by their local party over and over and over.
So, what’s changed over those years that suddenly the president says, “not good enough” and the voters acquiesce? Well, consider this number revealed from an NBC News poll from this spring.
The overwhelming majority of Republican primary voters are no longer voting based on the best chance to win (in other words, supporting a candidate who can appeal to the other side with some more centrist positions on issues) but solely on ideological purity. When NBC asked this question in 2023, 56% of Republicans said ideology. So, in the last three years, there has been a double digit jump by Republican primary voters wanting ideological purity.
At the same time, the MAGA makeover of the Republican Party is nearing its completion. March polling from the Economist/YouGov found that 63 percent of Republicans now identify themselves as MAGA, the highest figure yet.
Long gone are the days of the Reagan Revolution, when President Reagan once said of fellow Republicans that 80% a friend is not 20% an enemy. Today’s GOP is 100% loyalty or risk expulsion.