In Florida, Trump endorsed Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) for the Republican nomination for governor. The endorsement made Donald the front-runner and helped him raise more than $40 million, but it hasn’t insulated him from competition.

Since being endorsed by Trump in early 2025, Donalds has seen three other Republicans enter the race: Lt. Gov. Jay Collins, former Florida House Speaker Paul Renner, and millennial entrepreneur James Fishback. Polling shows Donalds well ahead of the pack, but with the primary not until Aug. 18, there is still time for the race to tighten.

“President Trump’s endorsement is a coveted stamp of approval in Republican primaries, which is why candidates across the country are asking for it and those running against it are playing for second place,” Republican National Committee spokeswoman Delanie Bomar told the Washington Examiner.

Merrill Matthews, resident scholar at the Institute for Policy Innovation, agreed. But she noted that while Trump’s endorsement is important, every election is different and has its own set of factors.

“If the state doesn’t necessarily like the person, Trump endorsing that person is not going to necessarily win them the primary and then the election,” said Matthews. “It’s helpful, but it’s not going to be 100%.”

Like Florida, Trump’s endorsement in Georgia has not cleared the field in the race to replace Republican Gov. Brian Kemp. Last August, Lt. Gov. Burt Jones got Trump’s backing for the post but has since seen two high-profile Republicans jump into the race.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a one-time Trump foe who publicly criticized the president’s assertion that the 2020 election was stolen, entered the race in September as a moderate alternative to Jones. Perhaps more troubling for Jones, however, was the entrance of billionaire Rick Jackson, who is running hard for the MAGA lane.

“These guys are all trying to act like, and they’re trying to put themselves out there, as a Trump-endorsed candidate,” Jones told the Washington Examiner. “They’re not running against the president by any means. So they’re trying to put a camouflage up about being the guy. But at the end of the day, I’ve known the president for over a decade now, he’s a dear friend, and he knows I have the best interest for the state of Georgia and for his administration at heart.”

Republicans are also not dropping out of races if Trump does not endorse them. Last week, Trump surprised some by backing former Sen. John E. Sununu for the GOP Senate nomination in New Hampshire over Scott Brown, whom he had appointed as America’s ambassador to New Zealand.

Sununu, who held the seat from 2003 to 2009, has a checkered history as a Trump critic, even calling the president a “loser” ahead of the New Hampshire Republican primary in 2024. Brown, who represented neighboring Massachusetts in the Senate from 2010 to 2013, is pledging to stay in the race despite losing Trump’s support.

“In New Hampshire, the voters are the boss. The ‘Live Free or Die’ spirit means we don’t take marching orders from anyone, we make up our own minds,” said Brown. “This primary isn’t about endorsements or titles handed down from the top; it’s a choice between the status quo and a leader who answers only to you.”

The same has played out in Louisiana. Incumbent Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), who voted to convict Trump during his 2021 impeachment over the Jan. 6 riot, made a concerted effort to line up the president’s support. Trump eventually endorsed Rep. Julia Letlow as his preferred Republican candidate for the seat.

Cassidy, for his part, is refusing to bow out of the race, just like Louisiana Treasurer John Fleming, who served in Trump’s first administration.

“My support, and how I’m going to get elected, is from the voters of Louisiana,” Fleming told the Washington Examiner last month. “I’m not looking for someone to anoint me to this position.”

Trump’s endorsement and sway aren’t necessarily on the decline. His early support of Mike Rogers in Michigan, Michael Whatley in North Carolina, and Sen. Jon Husted (R-OH), has helped all three men become the de facto Republican frontrunners in their respective Senate races. For Whatley and Rogers, Trump’s backing deterred other serious contenders from entering the race. The president’s support could also make all the difference in a tight primary.

Trump has not yet waded into the closely-watched Texas Senate GOP primary between Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-TX), and state Attorney General Ken Paxton. Yet, all three candidates are attempting to portray themselves as the most pro-Trump candidate in the race.

“That’s why I say the redder the state, the more important his endorsement is, especially in the primaries,” said Matthews.

Conservatives have also cautioned that candidate quality still matters, not just in the primary but in the general election as well.

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Trump’s support for Kari Lake in the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial race did not help Lake win. It didn’t help former Virginia attorney general Jason Miyares’s 2025 reelection campaign, nor Jack Ciattarelli’s 2025 New Jersey gubernatorial campaign. Notably, Trump did not endorse former Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears’s 2025 gubernatorial campaign, rightly sensing she could not win.

“There are some tests this time around to see if others can defy gravity, and I think Louisiana and Georgia, too, that will be really fascinating tests of that,” added the Republican strategist.

Ramsey Touchberry contributed to this report.