Is Trump really a ‘kingmaker’? Let’s see what happens from his Oz endorsement. | Opinion

What is to be done with our former presidents? Former President William Howard Taft was asked that question shortly after his own 1912 defeat. His answer — “a dose of chloroform” — if repeated today, might earn you a visit from the Secret Service.

Taft spent his golden years on the U.S. Supreme Court, but former President Donald Trump has used his retirement to play kingmaker, campaigning for Republican nominees around the country and even endorsing candidates in contested GOP primaries.

Here in Pennsylvania, that includes endorsements (and unendorsements) in the races for governor and U.S. senator. In the Senate race, Trump — who had earlier endorsed Sean Parnell, before he withdrew from the ballot — has recently given his seal of approval to Mehmet Oz, the heart surgeon-turned-celebrity doctor. In the gubernatorial race, Trump has not made an endorsement so much as he told voters to cast their ballots for anyone but Bill McSwain, whom Trump had previously appointed as a U.S. attorney in 2017.

Will any of it matter? The question boils down to whether Trump’s remaining popularity among Republican voters is transferable. Previous presidents who were even more popular than Trump found it hard to keep control of Congress while they were in office. Republicans never held the House while Ronald Reagan was president and lost the Senate in his second midterm. Democrats started Barack Obama’s years with a commanding majority in both the House and Senate and lost both by the time he left office. Trump’s GOP lost the House decisively in 2018.

But will the ex-commander in chief’s voice carry more weight in a Republican primary? The results so far have been mixed. Trump’s first foray into endorsements came in the 2017 Senate primary race in Alabama, where his preferred candidate, incumbent Luther Strange, lost to Judge Roy Moore (who himself lost to Democrat Doug Jones in the general). In the race there this year, Trump endorsed Mo Brooks, then withdrew that announcement last month when Brooks refused to say that he would work to overturn the 2020 election. There has been only one poll of that race since Trump’s unendorsement, but it showed little change.

I believe Trump’s endorsement of Oz here in Pennsylvania will likely also have little effect. Why? Because the leading candidates in the race, like in the Alabama contest, are already widely known. There are still many undecided primary voters, but were they just waiting for Trump to tell them what to do? It seems unlikely.

For all the talk of Trump as the leader of a cult of personality, his most fervid supporters show little sign of being led by him to do anything they did not already want to do. Trump’s success in the 2016 primaries came because he was saying things on trade, illegal immigration, and our endless wars overseas that none of the other Republicans were. But he did not convince Republican voters to question free trade with developing nations or nation-building overseas — they were already questioning all of that and more, despite a bipartisan Washington consensus to the contrary.

The proof: When Trump asks his most hard-core supporters to do something they don’t want to do, they ignore him. Back in December, Trump told a friendly crowd that he had received a COVID-19 booster and that they should, too. The response: boos. Had he told them the opposite, there might well have been cheers — but the concept of changing their minds just because an ex-president told them to was never on the table.

So it is with Oz. If no one knew him or his main opponent, David McCormick, the endorsement would loom large. But both men have name recognition and well-funded campaigns that let them show primary voters who they are and why they should win their votes. Case in point: Parnell, Trump’s previously endorsed candidate in the race, rejected the new favorite, tweeting that “Oz is the antithesis of everything that made Trump the best president of my lifetime — he’s the farthest thing from America First & he’d be very bad for PA.”

What happens if Trump endorses a candidate and nothing changes? If Pennsylvania GOP voters are thinking along the same lines as Parnell, Trump’s endorsement of Oz might turn out to show how little endorsements matter — even from a supposed “kingmaker.”

Kyle Sammin is editor-at-large at Broad + Liberty.