Kristen Welker told a Washington local hit that Donald Trump has had “some mixed results” with primary endorsements this cycle, then immediately named a win. Trump went nuclear and called it a lie on public airwaves. The scoreboard is not mixed. It is lopsided in a way Sunday shows only notice when the other team is batting .300.
What She Said, and What the Primaries Said
The line came on the D.C. affiliate, not as a full Meet the Press chyron, but it was the same product: Trump looms, except his picks are a coin flip. They are not.
Public tallies of this cycle put his primary win rate in the mid-to-high nineties. One running count had 313 of 332 endorsed candidates winning, about 96 percent. His own graphic after the latest batch: 254 of 262, 97 percent. Senate: every endorsed Republican who has finished a primary, 24-for-24 in the federal tracker he and the networks were arguing over. House: 214 of 218, call it 98 percent. That is not a mixed bag. That is a machine that occasionally throws a rod.
The “mixed” is doing work the numbers will not do. It is how you describe a 96 percent clip when you need the audience to hear weakness.
Where He Actually Lost
He loses governor races more than he loses Congress. Iowa dumped his House member. Georgia dumped his lieutenant governor for a self-funded CEO. Minnesota dumped the pillow guy. Wyoming dumped his pick for a state senator. Florida knocked out an incumbent congressman and another House hopeful the same week Byron Donalds and Ashley Moody were winning statewide. Tennessee redistricting ate a loyalist. Michigan produced a fluke where a suspended campaign stayed on the ballot and won.
Those are real. They are also the minority report. Gubernatorial ledgers in the trackers sit around 16 of 21, or 16 of 20, depending who is counting runoffs and hedges. That is the only column that looks like a sport. Senate and House look like a roll call.
He also pads the average the way every president pads it: incumbents, unopposed filings, late pile-ons in races already over. Fine. Even when you strip it toward contested non-incumbents, the federal win rate stays ugly for the people who wanted a civil war inside the party. The party is not having that war in House and Senate primaries. It had a few in statehouses and governors’ mansions.
CNN’s Harry Enten says Trump’s endorsement power just delivered one of its clearest demonstrations yet as Darline Graham reportedly surged from a 14 percent long shot to South Carolina’s GOP Senate nominee calling Trump’s name pure gold in Republican primaries#NYI pic.twitter.com/vl7uHXOXIw
— NewYork-Insight (@NewYork_Insight) August 27, 2026
The Wins They Buried
Darline Graham was not supposed to be a lock. He endorsed. She cleared the runoff. Oklahoma’s gubernatorial nominee was behind in polling; he endorsed; the man won by a couple thousand votes. Those are the stories that get a clause after “mixed.” The losses get a segment.
🚨 NOW: President Trump goes full VICTORY LAP mode after Sen. Darline Graham wins in South Carolina and Mike Mazzei wins the governor primary in Oklahoma
“I supported and ENDORSED two so-called “underdogs” yesterday, one from South Carolina, and the other from Oklahoma, and they… pic.twitter.com/clzVeYUGol
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) August 26, 2026
November is not in yet. General-election boxes on the trackers still sit at zero because nobody has counted November. “Mixed results this cycle” as a verdict on primaries is a category error dressed as analysis.
The Verdict
Welker’s sentence is the tell. When the number is 96 or 97 or 98 in the House and a thousand in the Senate, “mixed” means “we need a different headline.” Trump’s endorsement is still the cheapest way to end a Republican primary that is not a governor’s race with a billionaire on the other side. That can change in November if independents treat him like a toxic asset. It has not changed in the only elections that have been held.
Mixed is 12-10. This is a blowout with a handful of box-score exceptions. If that is mixed, words have clocked out.