Marsha Blackburn

Nothing in politics, not even Donald Trump’s grip on the Republican Party, is eternally unshakable. The 47th president has had some embarrassing high-profile setbacks in gubernatorial primaries earlier this year, including losses by his endorsed candidates in Iowa, Georgia, and South Carolina. Now he’s suffered his first 2026 loss in a congressional primary: Hard-core MAGA ultra and flamboyant Islamophobe Andy Ogles lost to former state agriculture commissioner Charlie Hatcher in Tennessee last night. As in the earlier contests lost by Team Trump, the winner naturally asserts he will be a stronger supporter of the Boss than the loser he dispatched. But it does add up to a growing tendency of MAGA-esque Republicans to disregard Trump’s actual preferences.

Ogles is a two-term House Freedom Caucus militant who has been a trouble magnet in Washington. He’s had a campaign finance scandal and an inflated-résumé scandal, but he is probably best known for smearing Muslims, notably New York mayor Zohran Mamdani, whom Ogles wants to deport. Then again, there are lots of Muslims Ogles would like to deport:

Ogles’s demise, however, was partially a by-product of Trump-supported GOP hubris: the gerrymander the Tennessee legislature carried out in May when the U.S. Supreme Court signaled the destruction of Voting Rights Act restraints in Louisiana v. Callais. The remapping was mostly designed to kill off the state’s one majority-Black congressional district, but the ripple effect was to expose Ogles to a lot of unfamiliar territory and voters. Just as importantly, though, Trump’s backing did not inhibit other leading Tennessee Republicans (notably Governor Bill Lee and former governor Bill Haslam) from supporting Hatcher, who outspent and out-hustled the incumbent. Hatcher also got some unacknowledged help from clean-energy interests who went after Ogles for his obnoxious record on environmental issues.

Trump and Muslim haters weren’t the only people disappointed by the outcome in Tennessee; Democrats were hoping to place the district in play in November behind Columbia mayor Chaz Molder. The stolid Hatcher will be a tougher opponent than the erratic Ogles.

The president did have one big win in Tennessee yesterday, when U.S. senator Marsha Blackburn turned back two rivals to become the GOP nominee for governor (Lee is term-limited). Blackburn, however, should be grateful Tennessee is the rare southern state without primary-runoff requirements; she won only 43 percent of the vote against John Rose and Monty Fritts. Blackburn’s onetime antagonist Taylor Swift hasn’t publicly commented on the outcome.