President Donald Trump's standing with Republicans will be put to the test on Tuesday, and if he comes up on the short end, he may never recover.
According to a report from Politico, the president has bet it all by throwing every bit of weight he has behind Sen. Darline Graham Nordone (R-SC) to be on the ballot in November.
If she loses to Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) in their runoff, it would be an "utter rejection" of the president, according to a former member of his first administration.
The president has spent a significant amount of time and money trying to help her defeat Norman in Tuesday's snap GOP Senate primary. He pushed her to run for a full term and held a rare in-person rally for her, even tapping into his MAGA Inc. warchest during the final days of the race.
If, after lending all that support, Graham fails, it would be Trump's "most embarrassing loss of the cycle," but a win, however, would let him flex his ability to power an unknown political figure to office.
"If Darline does come up short, it would be just a massive, massive embarrassment to the White House and to the president. Just an utter rejection," Matthew Bartlett, a Republican strategist and former Trump State Department appointee, told Politico.
Tuesday's runoff to replace the late Sen. Lindsey Graham on the November ballot "won't meaningfully affect the balance of power in Washington," the report notes. What it will do is reveal the extent of "Trump's clout," because of just how much personal political capital he has expended in the race to convince voters to elect a virtual stranger.
"The fact that he came to the state on short notice to do a rally, and we haven't seen that in a lot of endorsements, I think that sends a very strong message that he's all in," explained Andrew Boucher, a GOP strategist and chair of South Carolina's Charleston County Republican Party, who is neutral in the race.
Trump has framed the race as "nothing less than a referendum on himself." Rallying with Graham in Myrtle Beach last week, the president told voters to "pretend, please, that I'm on the ballot."
A Federal Election Commission report revealed that Trump's super PAC had spent $827,000 on text messages and phone calls for Graham. It's one of the largest expenditures this cycle from MAGA Inc., and cash that Republicans in battlegrounds are "anxiously awaiting for themselves," according to the report.
Several Republicans said that could mean a lower turnout — which "could be a boon for a known-quantity candidate" with a long history in local office, like Norman.
