Trump's endorsees have started losing more. But don't read into that for 2024.

An 82 percent win rate would be the envy of most endorsers, but for Trump, it’s a bit of a letdown. In 2020, those same types of candidates won 96 percent of their races (24 out of 25), and in 2018, his win rate among this group was 89 percent (17 out of 19).4

One big reason for this decrease is that Trump took a different endorsement strategy this year: He actively tried to defeat many sitting governors and members of Congress, who of course are very difficult to beat. In total, Trump endorsed 10 nonincumbents who were running against incumbents,5 and just six of them won or advanced to the general election — a 60 percent win rate that goes a long way toward explaining Trump’s lower overall win rate in 2022.

Still, more of these bets paid off than didn’t, and notably, Trump used these endorsements to reshape the party in his image. In total, six of the incumbents he targeted for defeat supported the effort to impeach him for his role in inciting the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, and only two of them survived: Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski6 and Washington Rep. Dan Newhouse.

In other words, Trump embarked on a crusade this year to rid the party of his critics, and it was largely successful.