Welcome to the online version of From the Policy Deska nightly newsletter that brings you the latest reporting and analysis from the NBC News politics team on the campaign, the White House and Capitol Hill.
In today’s edition, national political reporter Bridget Bowman explains how Trump’s influence charted the course of this year’s Republican Party primaries. Additionally, the campaign incorporates reports from Nnamdi Egwuonwu on the former president’s efforts to recruit rappers as replacements on the track.
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Two truths and a lie: Lessons from the GOP primaries so far
By Bridget Bowman
It remains unclear whether House Freedom Caucus Chairman Bob Good lost his Republican primary in Virginia, with mail-in and provisional votes yet to be counted and a potential recount looming.
Still, the razor-thin margin underscores two truths and one lie about this year’s House Republican primary. The truths? It’s very, very difficult to beat an incumbent. And it really helps to have Trump on your side.
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The lie? That Trump’s endorsement is the end all be all of the GOP primaries. Good only trails state Sen. John McGuire by a few hundred votes, a surprising result for those who thought Trump’s stamp of approval would help McGuire sail to victory.
But the fact that Good is so close to becoming the first member of Congress to lose to a primary challenger this cycle indicates that the former president remains a dominant force in GOP races.
Several other Republican incumbents have navigated rocky primaries in recent weeks with Trump’s help. On Tuesday, Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma easily avoided a runoff and defeated a wealthy opponent who spent millions on the race. Cole told me last week that Trump’s endorsement was “extremely helpful.”
Trump’s support also helped two South Carolina Republicans — Reps. Nancy Mace and William Timmons — win tough primary battles earlier this month.
While many insurgent primary challengers have tried to align themselves with the MAGA movement, the vast majority of Trump’s nearly 170 House endorsements this cycle — about 85 percent — have gone to incumbents, to the delight of the party leadership. And most of these legislators do not face competitive primaries.
So far, Trump has supported only two primary challengers against incumbent members: McGuire and Jerrod Sessler, a Navy veteran who faces Republican Rep. Dan Newhouse of Washington, one of two remaining House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump after Jan. 6. 2021, Capitol Riot.
This brings us back to the first truth: incumbents are hard to beat, in part because they have built-in advantages in name-checking, fundraising, and the ground game. Newhouse, helped by his state’s two major primary systems, defeated a Trump-backed primary challenger in 2022. We’ll find out on August 6 whether Newhouse will be able to do it again.
Trump courts rappers as campaign surrogates to win over more black voters
By Nnamdi Egwuonwu
At Donald Trump’s black voter outreach event at a Detroit church last weekend, a pastor and several prominent black Republicans joined the former president on stage. The same happened with another, more unlikely figure: rapper Casada Sorrell, better known as Sada Baby.
Most Republican voters may not be familiar with Sada Baby, but there’s a good chance their children will be. In 2020, he went viral with his single “Whole beer”, a pandemic pillar on TikTok that was one of the first viral records on the app.
Years later, he sat on stage just inches from Trump and said, “He might be the first person to make me vote,” fueled in part by the simple fact that Trump’s team contacted him.
“His contact showed me some kind of effort that another candidate had never shown,” Sorrell said, noting that Trump could have sought a bigger name in Detroit, like rapper Eminem (a notorious critic of his). “I’m trying to act like it doesn’t mean much, but it means a lot.”
And it is not an isolated movement. As Trump works to woo young black voters, one strategy his campaign has pursued is to turn rap stars into surrogates, going after not just nationally renowned names but also smaller, more prominent artists in their local communities.
The campaign hopes the release will create an enabling framework so that undecided voters in communities with little history of supporting Republicans can at least consider Trump’s message. And Trump is embracing rappers – and they are embracing him – as polling data suggests this election could feature a generational divide among black voters, with younger members of the community showing much more openness to their ex -president.
Icewear Vezzo, another Detroit rapper who was at Trump’s event in Michigan, encouraged his fans to consider Trump after receiving backlash for posing with him after the round table.
“Why can’t we respectfully disagree anymore,” Vezzo said in a post to his 1 million Instagram followers. “Do you know what built great companies and great civilizations? They all went and hired a team of people who think differently than them.”
Read more →
Today’s top news
- Study session: With the first presidential debate a week away, Biden is at Camp David for several days of intensive preparation, while Trump holds informal policy sessions with advisers and allies. Meanwhile, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. officially failed to qualify for the debate, falling short of CNN’s polls and voting thresholds. Read more →
- Decision day: The Supreme Court upheld a tax on foreign business investments in a case that some feared could imperil any future attempts to enact a wealth tax on the super-rich. Read more →
- ‘Zombie Law’: A group of Senate Democrats is pushing to repeal a 150-year-old law that reproductive rights advocates fear could be used to further restrict access to abortion. Read more →
- Misinformation watch: The Biden administration has no firm plans to warn the public about deepfakes or other false information during the election unless it clearly comes from a foreign actor and poses a sufficiently serious threat, according to current and former officials. Read more →
- Around the globe: Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un took their relationship to the next level, signing a strategic partnership agreement on Wednesday that could upset the balance of power in East Asia. Read more →
- Football is life: The Biden campaign is running ads during the Copa América soccer tournament in swing states that will host games next month, hoping to woo Latino voters. Read more →
That’s all from The Politics Desk for now. If you have feedback – like or dislike – send us an email at newsletter@nbcuni.com
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