Trump Becomes Litmus Test For Ideological Conservatives

Following up on my earlier post about the ideological strains contributing to the collapse of the Republican party, it is beginning to look like the Trump campaign is becoming the litmus test for down-ballot Republican races. Conservative ideologues are incredibly lining up behind Trump and taking on more moderate Republicans who are playing the “yes, but” game with Trump. Many conservative challengers are running on the very fact that that their primary opponent is not giving a full-throated endorsement to Trump. I’m not sure that this will be a winning strategy for the conservatives as Trump’s negatives are so high and his poll numbers are shockingly low. More importantly, Trump’s positions on many issues is decidedly not the conservative position. It will be interesting to see how these primary results shake out, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the conservatives end up a diminished influence in the party.