President Donald Trump is making the kind of headlines he likes in Louisiana, Kentucky, and Indiana, picking off disloyal Republican legislators and showcasing his near-total control over the party.
He’s shaping a GOP that will soon have fewer dissenters — and new potential problems.
First, let’s put the president’s “revenge tour” in perspective. The bar for loyalty keeps going up. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., toppled by Trump on Saturday, pushed past his clear doubts and voted to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr., declining to sharpen that into criticism of the president. He voted with Trump 100% of the time in 2025, according to VoteHub’s analysis.
In Kentucky, GOP Rep. Thomas Massie faces potential defeat on Tuesday as a Trump-aligned PAC pumps nearly $7 million into the priciest House primary yet. Massie, known in Washington as an incessant rebel against the Trump administration, voted with it 81.5% of the time in 2025.
Massie’s record might sound worse. Shouldn’t a president have party lawmakers who back him as often as possible? But if Trump is making primary decisions based on sheer fealty, then he might want to back Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, another 100% supporter who has failed to get a presidential endorsement even as the party worries his challenger could lose the seat to a Democrat.
Here’s a far more important number to Trump: 37%. That’s the record-low approval he notched in a Times/Siena poll released Monday, with 69% of independents disapproving. While Trump focuses on showing off his influence in red-state races where he can win, his own numbers spell trouble for Republicans in battleground races and states. The president is now likely to start 2027 with a party that’s both more loyal and less powerful in Congress, losing seats if not both majorities.
There’s another downside to Trump’s purge. Cassidy is now signaling that he may return to Washington newly emboldened to stand up to the president. That means Trump could spend the rest of this year asking for votes from three Republicans he antagonized who have no reason to fall in line: Cassidy, Cornyn (if he loses), and North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, who chose to retire after tangling with Trump last year.
Add in Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who’s keeping her distance from the administration as she runs for reelection, and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, who survived a Trump-driven primary in 2022, and suddenly it gets harder to push anything through the Senate.
That’s a problem for Trump’s nominees — he’s currently got vacancies atop the Justice Department and key health agencies — as well as the second party-line immigration bill Republicans are trying to muscle into law.
The party’s operatives say they can compete effectively this fall, separately from the Trump endorsement sweepstakes that many primaries have become.
“Republicans are in lockstep with President Trump — the ultimate turnout driver — and making major investments to win top battleground states,” RNC spokeswoman Emma Hall said. “Meanwhile, Democrats are out of money, running toxic far-left candidates, and stuck defending a historically unpopular agenda.”
