This week, aspiring senator Kris Kobach lost his primary in Kansas. Earlier this cycle, aspiring senator Roy Moore lost his primary in Alabama and Representative Steve King lost his primary in Iowa. At this hour, former sheriff Joe Arpaio is narrowly trailing the primary election for Maricopa County.
Since Donald Trump won the GOP nomination, we’ve seen a lot of Republicans, of varying degrees of political skill and charisma, try to emulate Trump’s style: pugnacious, over-the-top, pounding-the-table, serving up red meat and provoking outrage at every opportunity. By and large, it hasn’t worked well for candidates for lower-level offices. Don Blankenship, Corey Stewart, Kelli Ward, Chris McDaniel — other candidates who stood out for their incendiary, headline-grabbing rhetoric (and relative lack of interest in actual policy) — either flamed out in primaries or in the general election.
Five years after Donald Trump descended the escalator and announced his presidential campaign, there’s little evidence that the Trump style works for candidates not named Donald Trump.
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