“The president just about dragged Gov. Matt Bevin across the finish line, helping him run stronger than expected in what turned into a very close race at the end,” Brad Parscale, Trump’s campaign manager, said after the Kentucky loss. That probably isn’t true. And even if it were, the result isn’t that much more flattering to the president. A political ally who consistently helps you fall short of closing the deal isn’t much better than an ally who causes you to lose by 20 points.

The most recent losses by Trumpist candidates come, incidentally, as Democrats debate the legacy of former President Barack Obama. One lingering criticism of Obama — besides policy failures — that the Democratic Party suffered grievously during his tenure, losing seats in Congress and in state legislatures across the nation.

Republicans haven’t suffered the same scale of losses under Trump — but then again, he hasn’t had two full terms. But it is now clear that neither man had much in the way of coattails on which to get acolytes elected. Obama, however, managed to win a majority of the popular vote for himself, twice — an accomplishment that Trump has not yet fulfilled, and seems unlikely to attain next year.