Trump-backed Republican candidates suffered major defeats in South Carolina, North Carolina and Texas, helping Democrats secure control of the US Senate and raising questions about the president’s political influence.
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump suffered a major political setback in the midterm elections after several Republican candidates he personally endorsed lost key Senate races, helping Democrats take control of the chamber and exposing the limits of his influence over American voters.
Trump had urged voters to treat the elections as a referendum on his presidency, asking them to imagine that he was personally on the ballot. However, candidates backed by the president in South Carolina, North Carolina and Texas suffered defeats on Tuesday, while his preferred candidate in Michigan trailed in early results.
The results represent a significant challenge for Trump, who has spent more than a decade reshaping the Republican Party around his Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement. During that period, he frequently intervened in primary elections, favouring loyalists and ideological allies over established Republicans with stronger electoral records and statewide political networks.
The most striking defeat came in South Carolina, a traditionally Republican state that Trump won by 18 percentage points in 2024. The state had not elected a Democratic senator since 1998. Trump backed Darline Graham, the sister of late Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, but Democrat Annie Andrews secured an unexpected victory.
In North Carolina, former national Republican campaign official Michael Whatley, endorsed by Trump, lost decisively to former Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper.
Texas also delivered a major blow to the president’s political strategy. Trump intervened in a contentious Republican primary to support scandal-plagued Attorney General Ken Paxton over Senator John Cornyn, a Republican considered by some party members a safer general-election candidate. Democrat James Talarico won the seat, which Democrats had not secured since 1988.
In Michigan, former US Representative Mike Rogers, Trump’s preferred candidate, trailed Democrat Abdul El-Sayed in a race that had not been called. If elected, El-Sayed would become the first Muslim to serve in the US Senate.
The defeats came amid declining public approval of Trump. Reuters/Ipsos polling indicated that his popularity heading into Tuesday’s elections was lower than it had been in the aftermath of the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.
Veteran Republican strategist Doug Heye described the results as a “Trump Quake,” citing voter frustration over high prices linked to tariffs and the war in Iran.
“Trump spent the year telling voters what was important to him, not to them,” Heye said.
Trump responded defiantly on social media, writing: “I wasn’t on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!”
A White House official said Trump had done a better job promoting several candidates than the candidates themselves. Another senior administration official told Reuters that internal polling six weeks earlier had indicated Republicans could lose both the House of Representatives and the Senate, prompting Trump to launch a month-long nationwide campaign.
Political analysts also blamed Trump’s intervention in Republican primaries for weakening the party’s prospects.
American University professor Thomas Kahn argued that backing Paxton over Cornyn had cost Republicans a winnable Texas seat. He also said Trump’s earlier dispute with North Carolina Republican Senator Thom Tillis, who declined to seek re-election after clashing with the president over Medicaid cuts, had opened the door for Cooper.
Former North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory said Trump’s involvement in state-level Republican contests had deepened divisions within the party.
McCrory also warned that Trump had lost his connection with working-class voters, once considered one of his strongest political assets.
“I think President Trump’s greatest strength was he had a common touch with the working class people,” McCrory said. “He lost that skill. He better regain that skill for the good of the country.”
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