Election Results

There were a number of interesting results from last night’s primary elections. Once again, Donald Trump’s endorsement remains a tremendous asset for Republican candidates. His endorsement record now stands at 129-8.

While former State Representative Katie Arrington, Trump’s endorsed candidate in South Carolina’s First Congressional District, fell short in her primary challenge to Rep. Nancy Mace, the results were very different in another key South Carolina contest.

The Seventh Congressional District is currently held by Rep. Tom Rice. Trump carried the district with 60% of the vote, but Rice was one of just 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump after he left office. The conservative voters of the Seventh District clearly felt Rice was out-of-touch.

Last night, Rice wasn’t just defeated, he was trounced by 26 points. The five-term congressman barely got a quarter of the vote in his primary against Trump-endorsed State Representative Russell Fry. Rice is now the fifth GOP incumbent who supported the second impeachment effort against Trump to either lose a primary or retire out of fear of losing.  

In Nevada, former Attorney General Adam Laxalt, son of the late-Sen. Paul Laxalt (one of Ronald Reagan’s closest advisers), easily prevailed in the Republican Senate primary. 

The media tried to make this contest a real horse race, suggesting it was a serious test of Trump’s strength and that his endorsed candidate might lose. Well, Laxalt won by 22 points. He will face Democrat Senator Catherine Cortez Matso in November.

The biggest surprise of the night came in a special election for the open 34^th Congressional District in south Texas, where a Democrat incumbent retired early. 

At first glance, this heavily Hispanic district that Barack Obama won by 23 points and that Hillary Clinton won by 22 points would not appear to be competitive. But last night, Mayra Flores won the special election by eight points, becoming the first Republican to represent the Rio Grande Valley since Reconstruction.

One MSNBC analyst described what is happening in south Texas as a “political earthquake” and a “five alarm fire for Democrats.” He warned that these heavily Hispanic counties “will be voting like West Virginia.”

Flores ran as a strong pro-life, conservative. I couldn’t help but notice that she attributed her victory in this heavily Mexican-American district to God and to the “values of faith, family and freedom.” 

Dr. James Dobson and I popularized that phrase many years ago, and I am pleased to see more and more candidates embracing it today.