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Roby Won. Here’s How Other Pro- and Anti-Trump Republicans Are Faring.

For Republicans running in competitive primaries this year, one question has loomed above all others: To embrace President Donald Trump or to oppose him?

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 Roby Won. Here’s How Other Pro- and Anti-Trump Republicans Are Faring.
By
Maggie Astor
, New York Times

For Republicans running in competitive primaries this year, one question has loomed above all others: To embrace President Donald Trump or to oppose him?

This choice can make or break a campaign. Already, repeatedly, it has. For pro-Trump insurgents, the scorecard is full of upsets — and for anti-Trump incumbents, startling defeats.

Rep. Martha Roby of Alabama narrowly escaped that fate Tuesday, winning a primary runoff that she was forced into because nearly two years ago she called on Trump to drop out of the presidential race in response to the “Access Hollywood” tape in which he bragged about groping women.

If not for her efforts since then to realign herself with the president — not to mention the fact that her runoff opponent, Bobby Bright, used to be a Democrat — the result might have been different. Since Trump took office, Roby has vocally supported him and consistently voted for his policies. She earned endorsements from Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.

Here is a look at how other Republicans have fared after distancing themselves from Trump or aligning themselves with him.

— The Trump Supporters: Corey Stewart, Katie Arrington and Others

Supporting Trump doesn’t guarantee victory, especially if a candidate has other baggage. But it definitely doesn’t hurt.

Katie Arrington of South Carolina defeated Rep. Mark Sanford

Nowhere has the Trump effect been clearer than in South Carolina’s 1st District, where Arrington, a first-term state legislator, defeated Sanford last month by seizing on his criticism of the president. She argued relentlessly that Sanford had forfeited his “seat at the table” and that South Carolinians deserved a representative who would work with the president — and it worked, carrying her to one of the biggest upsets this year. (Less than two weeks after winning the primary, Arrington was seriously injured in a car crash. She returned to the campaign trail this week.)

Lou Barletta is the Senate nominee in Pennsylvania

Barletta, a four-term congressman and one of Trump’s earliest supporters, ran away with Pennsylvania Republicans’ Senate nomination in May and will face Sen. Bob Casey in the general election. Casey is comfortably ahead in polls, but Trump has thrown his weight behind Barletta, praising him on Twitter and recording robocalls in hopes of an upset.

Don Blankenship of West Virginia embraced, but was rejected by, the president

It was an unusual situation in West Virginia’s Republican Senate primary: Blankenship, a former coal executive best known for going to prison for his role in a fatal mine disaster, cast himself as Trumpian from top to bottom, but Trump joined the Republican establishment in urging voters to reject him. (Notably, Trump did not object to Blankenship’s platform, but argued that he wasn’t electable.) In the end, it was not even close; Blankenship lost by 19 percentage points.

Casey Cagle and Brian Kemp are in a runoff in Georgia

If you want to know how significant the Trump effect is, look no further than the primary runoff for Georgia governor, in which Cagle and Kemp are jockeying for the title of Most Faithful to the President. It is a strange dance, given that neither of them backed Trump in the 2016 primaries. (Cagle campaigned for Jeb Bush.) But they understand very well how this year’s voters are rewarding Trump’s defenders and punishing his detractors. Their runoff is next week and in a tweet Wednesday, Trump made clear which one he preferred: Kemp.

John Cox succeeded in California’s primary

To say that Cox, a Republican running for governor of the nation’s largest blue state, is unlikely to win in November would be an understatement. But he made it through California’s top-two primary system over the second-ranked Democrat, a major tactical victory for Republicans concerned about down-ballot candidates, and that may be attributable in part to Trump’s support.

Corey Stewart is the Senate nominee in Virginia

Stewart has embraced Trump wholeheartedly. He won his Senate primary last month despite a history of praising the Confederacy and meeting with a white nationalist and an anti-Semite. (He has said he did not know their views at the time.) But while Stewart’s rhetoric, particularly on immigration, resembles Trump’s, the president has not campaigned for him, even though Stewart said he would “be rolling out the red carpet” and “tying myself very, very closely to the president and his success.”

Luther Strange lost in Alabama, even with Trump’s help

Strange is a prominent exception to the pattern of successful Trump-supporting candidates. Appointed in February 2017 to fill the Senate seat vacated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, he went on to lose to Roy Moore in a special election primary despite an enthusiastic endorsement from the president. The campaign showed the limits of the Trump effect: While support for Trump can lift a candidate in a relatively close race, and criticism of him can make an upset loss out of what would ordinarily be an easy win, Trump cannot necessarily rescue a sinking candidate.

— The Trump Opponents: Mark Sanford, Justin Amash

It is telling that many of Trump’s most vocal Republican critics either are not running for re-election (Sens. Jeff Flake of Arizona and Bob Corker of Tennessee, for example), or they are running in deep-blue states where support from Democrats and independents is essential (like Gov. Charlie Baker of Massachusetts).

There are very few case studies of what happens when Republicans outside those narrow categories criticize Trump, because very few of them have done so. But what examples exist are not reassuring to candidates who would like to break with the president.

Martha Roby won in Alabama, but …

Roby may have survived her runoff Tuesday, but the very existence of that runoff cost her money and time that she would have saved if she had earned a majority of the votes in the June primary, as most incumbents do with ease. And the result could well have been different if she had not made a point of reingratiating herself with Trump (or if her opponent had not been a former Democrat).

Mark Sanford lost in South Carolina

Before last month, Sanford had never lost a race. Then he hitched his wagon to the “never Trump” train, saying that a “cult of personality” had formed around Trump and calling fellow Republicans’ hesitance to publicly criticize the president a “cancer.” Arrington capitalized on this criticism to great effect and Trump himself put his thumb on the scales at the last minute, tweeting an Election Day endorsement of Arrington and calling Sanford “nothing but trouble.”

Justin Amash is still standing in Michigan

If there is one race that tells a different story, it is that of Amash, a congressman. Amash has been an unapologetic critic of Trump on a variety of issues and openly condemned the president’s attack on Sanford: “Unlike you,” he tweeted, addressing Trump directly, “Mark has shown humility in his role and a desire to be a better man than he was the day before.” But while a White House aide, Dan Scavino, called last year for a primary challenge to Amash, no serious challenger emerged.

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