WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump’s influence in Republican primary elections is about to get stress-tested.
A series of primaries in early May across deep-red territory in Indiana, Kentucky and Louisiana all feature entrenched GOP officials fighting back against Trump-backed challengers, and early signs indicate Trump’s preferred candidates may not always have the upper hand. The results of the primaries could provide a stark indication of whether the president’s legendary sway over the GOP is fading as his popularity sinks.
The high-profile races include challenges to Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), along with a promised revenge tour against GOP state senators in Indiana. All have committed supposed sins against Trump — Massie helped Democrats release the Epstein files, Cassidy voted to convict Trump in his 2021 impeachment trial, the state senators dared to defy his orders to redraw their state’s congressional map — and yet all have at least a fighting chance.
None are running on explicitly anti-Trump platforms, and all are taking pains to downplay their differences with the president, who remains broadly popular with Republican voters. But their victories could give other Republicans space to at least occasionally break with the president or distance themselves as they run for reelection in November, which would mark a sharp contrast from the peak of Trump’s power.
“There are people who support Trump who will be voting for me, because, frankly, they appreciate both of our roles,” Massie told HuffPost. “They don’t want a rubber stamp, and they appreciate that I might be the only dissenting vote occasionally, because you can have a favorable view of Trump and believe that 10% of the time he may be wrong.”
One GOP strategist, requesting anonymity to speak frankly about the president, acknowledged Trump’s sway has diminished but said he was still by far the party’s most powerful figure.
“You obviously want the president’s endorsement, but at this point you might want it as much for the money that comes with it than the endorsement itself,” the strategist said, pointing to Trump’s well-funded allied super PAC, MAGA, Inc. “A big chunk of voters will still say ‘how high?’ when he says ‘jump.’ But that group’s smaller than it was before the Epstein files and Iran.”
Jesse Hunt, another Republican strategist, noted now-President Trump has far less time to dedicate to swaying voters than then-candidate Trump did in 2022 and 2024.
“Saying ‘Donald Trump supports XYZ or this or that’ in an ad is helpful, but when he’s the difference maker is when he throws his full force of his ability to drive media attention at a given subject,” Hunt said. “He’s leading the country. He has less time to do that for downballot races. That’s the reality of governing, especially when you’re not running for reelection.”
Trump’s approval rating has hit new lows in recent polling. A Pew Research Center survey released Friday showed just 34% of registered voters approved of his job performance. But losses among people who backed him in 2024 seem to be accelerating: While 95% of them approved his job performance in January 2025, that number fell to 83% a year later and to just 78% today.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment. A Trump ally, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said it was possible Trump could travel to Kentucky and Louisiana before the races there to make renewed pushes for his favorite candidates.
And Trump dove into a different race in Kentucky on Friday night, endorsing Rep. Andy Barr to replace Mitch McConnell in the Senate after arranging for another candidate in the race, businessman Nate Morris, to take an ambassadorial position.
One candidate who has benefited from a Trump-directed surge in cash is Ed Gallrein, a former Navy SEAL and Massie’s Trump-backed challenger. Trump-allied and pro-Israel groups have poured more than $10 million into ads attacking Massie and boosting Gallrein ahead of the May 19 primaries. But limited public polling has shown Massie with a small lead in the district and a super PAC backing him has been able to respond with more than $3 million of its own advertising.
And part of Massie’s strategy is to portray himself as more of a Trump ally than as a Trump critic, even if his support for releasing the Epstein files and opposition to administration priorities often draws headlines. In one ad, Massie goes direct to camera to tick off a huge list of conservative priorities he shared with Trump.
“President Trump and I have a whole lot more to get done together,” Massie says over an image of him walking alongside an AI-generated elephant wearing a MAGA hat.
In Indiana, Trump wants revenge against eight state senators who defied his demand that they redraw the state’s congressional map to eliminate Democratic seats ahead of November’s midterm elections. Trump recruited a first-term city councilman named Blake Fiechter to go up against state Sen. Travis Holdman, the highest-ranking member of the Indiana legislature up for reelection.
After receiving Trump’s endorsement in January, Fiechter announced in February that he was ending his campaign, saying it was too hard. Then he got back in the race and joined other Trump-backed challengers in a visit to the White House and a meeting with Sen. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), one of Trump’s more enthusiastic supporters on Capitol Hill. One Republican county chairman suggested to the Indiana Capital Chronicle that voters don’t care enough about redistricting to throw Holdman overboard.
“There are lots of issues that motivate the voters in Indiana, but I would bet my Starbucks card that he loses,” Banks told HuffPost.
With no public polling of the races, it’s difficult to know who might be winning. Banks and Gov. Mike Braun, however, have dedicated millions of dollars toward groups airing attack ads and sending mailers attacking the incumbents and supporting Trump-backed candidates.
Cassidy, one of the Republican senators who voted to convict Trump at his 2021 impeachment trial, is locked in a three-way Republican primary against Rep. Julia Letlow (R-La.) and former Rep. John Fleming (R-La.). Letlow has Trump’s endorsement, but in polling, it’s Fleming, who also served in multiple roles during the first Trump administration, who has the lead.
“People know that I worked in the Trump administration for four years. They know my voting record in the House of Representatives for eight years,” Fleming told HuffPost, noting he was a co-founder of the right-wing House Freedom Caucus.
“They see me far more in alignment with President Trump, that I’m much more the prototypical MAGA candidate,” Fleming said. “The comments I get over and over again is, ‘We love Trump, and we 100% support his agenda, but in this case, he endorsed the wrong candidate.’”
Cassidy has run ads highlighting his relationship with Trump, even though Trump has endorsed one of his opponents. But Cassidy’s most recent ad, released last week, doesn’t mention the president, instead bashing former President Joe Biden and saying Cassidy saved Louisiana jobs.
In a brief interview in a Senate hallway, Cassidy told HuffPost he didn’t think the president’s endorsement would determine the outcome of the race.
“I think I’m going to win,” he said. “I deliver for Louisiana. I worked really hard for my state. People want to have someone who’s delivered for their state.”
An Emerson College Polling/KLFY News 10 survey released this week showed Cassidy in third place with 21% support among Louisiana Republican primary voters, compared to 27% for Letlow and 28% for Fleming. A Quantus Insights poll in February showed Fleming with 34%, Letlow with 25% and Cassidy at 20%.
Fleming said Cassidy’s impeachment vote was a “betrayal,” and he said Letlow has had problems with questionable stock trades while in office, as well as with her past support for diversity, equity and inclusion when she served as an administrator at the University of Louisiana at Monroe.
“When I was there, DEI was presented to us as a tool that would help students actually achieve the American dream … I quickly witnessed it was hijacked by the radical left, turned into indoctrination of our students, even Marxism,” Letlow told a Louisiana TV station in an interview posted this week.
Fleming said his campaign’s polling shows Louisiana Republicans still support the president and that his own success, even without Trump’s endorsement, doesn’t mean the president’s star is fading.
“This in no way reflects upon the president,” he said.