Longtime Republican pollster Frank Luntz recently declared, “There is zero doubt tonight that Donald Trump is in complete and total control of the Republican Party.” His statement came after the president’s preferred candidate, Ken Paxton, primaried Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) in late May.Luntz was not alone in seeing a political colossus. “Trump’s grip on the Republican party has never been tighter,” the Guardian reported after the primary win by Paxton, the Texas attorney general. “The GOP is ‘Donald Trump’s party,’” Kentucky’s WUKY radio station stated. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) expressed the same sentiment on NBC’s Meet the Press: “This is the party of Donald Trump.”These sentiments are not inaccurate. Cornyn was the third sitting congressional legislator toppled that month. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) also lost to well-financed primary opponents backed by Trump and the MAGA money machine. And that is to say nothing of the Indiana state GOP legislators he helped defeat because they refused to gerrymander their state’s congressional districts.
Yet, primarying fellow partisans is one thing, and marshaling majorities in two chambers to enact policies into law is another. And congressional Republicans have been resisting or outright pushing back on Trump lately.
