GOP senators on 2026 ballot walk a fine line on Trump loyalty

WASHINGTON — The debate over some of Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks has exposed the careful path some Republican senators will be walking to satisfy the president-elect’s demand for loyalty and navigate his allies’ threats to recruit primary challengers to lawmakers deemed insufficiently supportive.

GOP senators who oppose his Cabinet nominees ought to face a primary from the right “if they’re unreasonable,” Trump said at a news conference this week at Mar-a-Lago.

“If they’re opposing somebody for political reasons or stupid reasons, I would say ... they probably would be primaried,” he said.

Republican senators who have expressed even mild misgivings about some of Trump’s announced nominees have already endured blowback from MAGA loyalists. Sen. Mike Rounds’ recent praise of outgoing FBI Director Christopher Wray netted the South Dakota Republican a warning from Charlie Kirk, an influential pro-Trump activist: “Don’t be surprised, Mike Rounds, when you get a primary challenge.”

Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst also drew the wrath of Kirk and other conservative activists when she raised questions about past sexual assault allegations against Pete Hegseth, Trump’s choice to lead the Department of Defense. (Hegseth has denied the allegations.)

Ernst has since met with Hegseth and has cooled her criticism but her comments have spurred talk of a primary challenge. Podcaster Jason Smith launched a long-shot bid earlier this month, while Iowa talk show host Steve Deace suggested he would primary the two-term senator should Trump give the OK.

“It’s very difficult to take (a sitting senator) out without the blessing of the king,” he said in an interview Wednesday, adding that he’s been approached by numerous national, state and local Republicans about a possible run against Ernst.

Both Rounds and Ernst are up for reelection in 2026.

Heritage Action, the political arm of the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank, has already launched an ad blitz in support of Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard and other announced Trump Cabinet nominees. The digital ads are running in states that have Senate contests next cycle, including South Dakota, Texas, Louisiana and Maine, all with GOP senators on the 2026 ballot.

At the height of his power

But it isn’t just Trump’s Cabinet picks who are raising the stakes for Republican senators.

Devotion to Trump has long been a red line for Republican voters. But now, Trump is at the height of his political power and poised to take office with a far more compliant Congress than the one he dealt with in his first term.

“Trump won a decisive victory and he overperformed … every single Republican senator on the ballot this cycle,” said Matt Mackowiak, a longtime Republican operative based in Austin, Texas. “He is the strongest he’s ever been among Republican voters.”

Elon Musk, a close Trump adviser, threatened Wednesday on X, the social media platform he owns, that any member of Congress who votes for the year-end legislative package unveiled Tuesday should be voted out in two years, a remark that came as support for the measure waned. Musk, the world’s richest man, spent millions to support Trump through super PACs leading up to this year’s elections.

Still, in recent years, it’s been rare for an incumbent senator to lose a primary. The last one to do so was appointed Alabama Sen. Luther Strange, who lost a special election Republican primary to Roy Moore in 2017. Moore went on to lose to Democrat Doug Jones.

One senator up for reelection in 2026 has already drawn a high-profile primary challenger. Louisiana state Treasurer John Fleming, a former congressman, launched a bid earlier this month against Sen. Bill Cassidy. In his campaign announcement, Fleming alluded to the senator’s 2021 vote to convict Trump at his second impeachment trial, saying that “those who turned their backs on (Trump) and America First were not committed to his fight to make America great again.”

Texas Sen. John Cornyn could face several challengers from the right should he run for a fifth term, including from state Attorney General Ken Paxton, a staunch Trump ally.

West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito has already drawn a 2026 primary challenge from a former state delegate and convicted Jan. 6 rioter, who called her a “RINO,” or Republican in Name Only, in his campaign announcement.

Mackowiak, though, says it’s too soon to say whether the flurry of threats against other sitting senators will result in viable primary challenges.

“We’ll have to see how the year plays out,” he said.

More bark than bite?

Republicans are defending 20 seats in 2026, not counting likely special elections in Ohio (for the remaining term of incoming Vice President JD Vance) and Florida (for GOP Sen. Marco Rubio’s unfinished term if he’s confirmed as Trump’s secretary of State). As many as 10 of those incumbents could face challenges from the party’s MAGA wing.

Of course, most of those incumbents – with the exception of Collins – are strong Trump allies.

“I imagine Cornyn’s going to be a pretty strong partner with Trump on the border reconciliation bill, tax cuts, on the nominees. So, however the situation might appear to some people now, I think it’s gonna look very different by the end of the year,” Mackowiak said.

Cornyn has already said he plans to seek reelection next year.

“I do expect him to have a primary, but whether it’s a serious, credible candidate and how many there are and whether Trump weighs in, remains to be seen,” Mackowiak said.

In South Dakota, Rounds is unlikely to be seriously threatened by a MAGA-backed challenger, said Jon D. Schaff, a professor of political science at Northern State University in Aberdeen, S.D.

“Whether the more ardent Trump supporters are going to extend their sort of brinkmanship that they’re suggesting with nominees to other policies, I suppose that’s probably true,” Schaff said. “I don’t think that Mike Rounds’ voting record is going to be the issue if there is an issue, because he’s been in the Senate before with Donald Trump. … I don’t think that there are going to be any policy differences with the Trump administration.”

Rounds’ biggest liability with Trump’s more pugnacious allies might be one of style, not political substance, Schaff said.

“Mike Rounds is not perceived as a fighter, and that’s probably his biggest problem,” he said of the former two-term South Dakota governor.

North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, who has said he expects to draw a primary challenger based on his past elections, has the distinction of running in a swing state that voted for Trump by 3 points last month. He and Collins are among the senators expected to have the most competitive general elections in 2026.

“I don’t ever worry about getting primaried,” Tillis, a former speaker of the North Carolina House, said Wednesday at the Capitol. “This is my job to be able to win elections. I’ve done that for about 20 years.”

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