Who Decides? Media, MAGA, Money, and Mentions in the 2022 Republican Primaries

Primary elections offer one important arena to view intra-party competition in the countries where they take place. Elite influence in primary elections is well established (Cohen et al. 2008; Hassell 2018), yet comparatively little is known about whose voices matter when different intra-party signals are sent. Republican primaries in 2022 frequently featured candidates with the support of distinct parts of the party network, and where one individual—Donald Trump—loomed large across all nominations. To better understand the influence of disparate cues, we measure the relationship between Fox News coverage (media), Donald Trump’s endorsement (MAGA), campaign fundraising (money), and social media attention (mentions), on the outcomes of contested gubernatorial and Senate primaries. We demonstrate that all of these signals were, to varying degrees, associated with vote share and ability to advance from a Republican primary. Trump’s endorsements in particular were strongly associated with winning primaries. Candidates who Trump endorsed received roughly nine additional percentage points of the vote, with a further six percentage point penalty for candidates’ whose opponents were endorsed. We investigate Trump’s role in shaping the field by focusing on the extent to which he served as a party “kingmaker or a cheerleader” (Kousser et al. 2015). In contests where Trump endorsed, he overwhelmingly did so in support of favorites. Prior to receiving his support, recipients of Trump’s endorsements raised more money, appeared on Fox News more often, received more attention on Twitter, and were around eleven percentage points better off in the polls than their opponents. Having established that these candidates were already outperforming their opponents prior to Trump’s endorsement, we analyze the impact of his support, empirically testing how Trump shaped the primary field. Trump’s endorsement was associated with a roughly thirteen percentage point boost in both campaign fundraising and polling. Conversely, Trump’s endorsement had little impact on the media landscape, with no associated increase in Fox News appearances or social media attention. The finding of increased financial support following a Trump endorsement suggests that the former president retains the ability to influence both large donors and small-dollar grassroots supporters in the Republican Party. These findings help us better understand the mechanism through which a single individual now dominates the party’s legislative nomination process, with consequences for both the identity of general election nominees and the dynamics of intra-party politics in the modern Republican Party.