New York, Colorado and Utah primaries 2024: Bowman loses, Boebert wins

Trump made some ill-advised endorsements in today's races, and it feels to me like they were based more on his own personal taste rather than any kind of strategy. Williams in Colorado’s 5th District has been very outspoken, he’s an election denier, he’s made controversial, identity politics stands as the state GOP chair, and it could just be that Trump liked his MAGAness or the fact that he seized control of the state party in the way he did. I doubt his team would have chosen Williams as the endorsee, I suspect this was all Trump, and a similar scenario may have happened with Staggs and Burns.

—Kaleigh Rogers, 538

Going into tonight, Trump had only endorsed one candidate for Senate, House or governor who lost. Tonight alone, he endorsed three. Why do you guys think Trump failed so badly tonight? Was it just bad luck, or something real?

—Nathaniel Rakich, 538

Perhaps Trump has been reading the 538 live blogs and didn’t like my comments about him padding his record when it comes to endorsing candidates guaranteed to win (uncontested, incumbents, etc), but the former president took a few gambles in tonight’s races on dark horse candidates. It … did not pay off. Of the 19 races tonight where Trump made an endorsement, 15 are projected to win, three are projected to lose, and one is leading (Celeste Maloy in Utah’s 2nd District, but it’s a close race). However … 12 of those wins were uncontested races, and among the uncontested races, two endorsed candidates were incumbents (including Rep. Lauren Boebert, who was running in a new district but is still a sitting representative).

When Trump actually rolled the dice tonight, like in endorsing Dave Williams in Colorado’s 5th District or Trent Staggs for the GOP Senate race in Utah, he came up short. Overall, 79 percent of Trump’s endorsees are projected to have won their races tonight, but when you consider only the contested races (even including incumbents), Trump is 50-50 on his endorsements, with one race pending. What was I saying about padding the record again?

—Kaleigh Rogers, 538

Philip Bump and Lenny Bronner over at The Washington Post dove into precinct results in New York’s 16th District and found something interesting: More heavily Jewish precincts voted pretty strongly for Latimer.

—Nathaniel Rakich, 538