Roger Stone and Mike Lindell aren’t enough: MAGA candidates flop without Trump endorsement

A handful of MAGA candidates lost their Republican primary elections without an explicit endorsement from Donald Trump.

Right Side Broadcasting Network host Mike Crispi lost his challenge 57-37 percent to GOP Rep. Christopher Smith in New Jersey, despite earning the backing of MAGA luminaries Michael Flynn, Rudy Giuliani and Roger Stone, while former New Jersey state senator Thomas Kean Jr. beat Trump-loving candidates Phil Ruzzo and Erik Peterson, reported The Daily Beast.

California voters overwhelmingly backed GOP Rep. Young Kim over hardcore MAGA candidate Greg Raths, although Stone-backed candidate Ronda Kennedy appears to have notched a narrow win in the GOP primary to face Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) in November.

Both Crispi and Kennedy hired Stone as a campaign manager, but none of these MAGA-aligned candidates garnered Trump's official endorsement.

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“There is a message here to many Republican incumbents to stop fearing being primaried, that the power of incumbency remains formidable, and that many voters in the party are looking past Trump now,” said Mark Rozell, the dean of George Mason University Schar School of Policy and Government. “Quite simply, the diminished ex-president doesn’t command the same power within the party that he did a few years ago.”