Jon Ossoff

President Trump’s endorsements continue to be powerful in Republican primaries, and G.O.P. voters remain devoted to him — but his blessing is not always determinative, even in Republican races.

For the second time this month, my colleague Patricia Mazzei noted, the president backed the losing candidate in a Republican primary for governor. His choice in Georgia’s runoff — Lt. Gov. Burt Jones — lost to Rick Jackson, a wealthy health care executive who spent more than $100 million of his own money on his bid. Earlier in June, Trump’s pick for governor in Iowa narrowly lost, too.

Of course, the winners hardly ran as Mitt Romney-style, Never Trump conservatives (a brand that is all but extinct in today’s Republican Party). Jackson, my colleague Rick Rojas wrote, “portrayed himself to the state’s Republican base as a homegrown version of Mr. Trump,” an effort the president himself tried to embrace in a social media post.

“Congratulations to Rick Jackson, who very successfully campaigned on being ‘TRUMP,’ and won,” Trump wrote. He appeared to make a similar argument about Zach Lahn, the Republican nominee for governor in Iowa.

And Trump did have other victories last night, with his choices for Senate prevailing in deeply conservative Alabama and Oklahoma, as well as in Georgia, home to one of the most consequential Senate races on the map.

There,Representative Mike Collins now faces the challenging task of unseating Senator Jon Ossoff, a Democrat who has been an exceptionally strong fund-raiser.

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