Former Project 2025 director Paul Dans doesn’t care that Donald Trump has already endorsed his opponent Lindsey Graham.
Photo: Dominic Gwinn/AFP/Getty Images
For nearly a decade now, ambitious Republicans have been smart to hitch their wagons to the force of nature that is Donald Trump. Getting the MAGA seal of approval (usually with a Truth Social post offering a “Complete and Total Endorsement”) has been a ticket to victory in countless statewide and congressional primaries. And there’s no better way of making that happen than loud, proud, and constant proclamations of loyalty to Trump and his rather alarming notions of American Greatness.
As some would-be MAGA candidates are discovering, however, Trump is very focused on maintaining control of Congress in the midterm elections and placing an unprecedented emphasis on electability and party unity in seeking to maximize opportunities for general election wins. This is leaving some Trump fans in the odd position of insisting on fighting the godless radical left for the president even if he actually prefers someone else. This is particularly noticeable in South Carolina, where Senator Lindsey Graham has been an object of wrath for hard-core conservatives since long before Trump came down the escalator to take over the Republican Party. He remains at best a MAGA frenemy, but his endorsement by the president in March was designed to keep him safe.
Since then, however, two self-proclaimed Trump servants have announced their opposition to Graham for 2026. One is a familiar figure to aficionados of right-wing theater: former lieutenant governor Andre Bauer, perhaps best known nationally for once comparing poor children on food stamps to “stray animals” who should be discouraged from staying alive and eventually reproducing. On July 1, he jumped into the race against Graham, calling himself “a real, America First conservative.” It’s true that Bauer backed Trump in the 2016 South Carolina presidential primary, long before he became golfing buddies with Graham. But this isn’t the year for Trump to take a flier on birds in the bush like Bauer when Graham is fully in hand. That message, however, is taking a while to get around because now Graham has attracted a second MAGA challenger, former Project 2025 director Paul Dans, as the Associated Press reports:
Dans told The Associated Press the Trump administration’s federal workforce reductions and cuts to federal programs are what he had hoped for in drafting Project 2025. But he said there’s “more work to do,” particularly in the Senate.
“What we’ve done with Project 2025 is really change the game in terms of closing the door on the progressive era,” Dans said in an AP interview. ”If you look at where the chokepoint is, it’s the United States Senate. That’s the headwaters of the swamp.”
You may recall that Dans was thrown under the bus by Trump’s presidential campaign back when the candidate was trying to pretend he knew nothing about it. He was forced to step down, only to see much of his handiwork quickly put into place when Trump took office. Now he wants vindication, he told AP: “To be clear, I believe that there is a ‘deep state’ out there, and I’m the single one who stepped forward at the end of the first term of Trump and really started to drain the swamp,” Dans said, noting he compiled much of the book from his kitchen table in Charleston.
Perhaps Trump will be fine with Dans and Bauer keeping some pressure on Graham for a while, but at some point they are probably toast. He took a more preemptive position in a key Senate race in Georgia, where everybody’s favorite enemy of Jewish space lasers, Marjorie Taylor Greene, was taking a long look at a challenge to Democrat Jon Ossoff in 2026. According to The Wall Street Journal, Trump called up Greene, told her about polls showing she couldn’t win, and got her to give the race a pass. But he could have another problem. It’s been reported for a while that Governor Brian Kemp, a former Trump rival who passed up the Senate race himself, wants to arrange a joint endorsement with Trump to clear the field and anoint a GOP nominee. Kemp has decided on his lifelong friend Derek Dooley, a former football coach and political neophyte (and son of the much better-known longtime University of Georgia football coach the late Vince Dooley).
But now a mega-MAGA congressman has jumped into the race: Mike Collins, a wealthy trucking executive who told Fox News, “This is the people’s time to take back control of this Senate seat, deliver on President Trump’s America First agenda, and kick Jon Ossoff to the curb.” There’s even another Trumpy congressman in the field, Buddy Carter, one of the first to nominate the president for a Nobel Peace Prize for his arrangement of a cease-fire between Israel and Iran. So does Trump pick a fight with Kemp, who kicked his surrogate’s butt when he tried to purge the combative governor in 2022, and divide the Georgia GOP? Or does he disappoint Collins or Carter or both? It’s a tough decision.
There’s at least one more self-appointed MAGA champion whom Trump will be sorely tempted to deep-six going into 2026: Pennsylvania state senator Doug Mastriano, who seems eager to challenge Democratic governor Josh Shapiro next year. That’s fitting in a way, since Mastriano’s wildly incompetent and extremist 2022 gubernatorial campaign (after a Trump endorsement) had a lot to do with Shapiro becoming governor in the first place. Republicans aren’t very optimistic about beating Shapiro, but they definitely don’t want a drag on the ticket in the form of Mastriano, who is indeed handily leading consensus party favorite Stacy Garrity in early primary polls. There are as many as four vulnerable Republican-held House seats in the state, and it’s certain Trump doesn’t want them to fall. So does he shove Mastriano out of the way, and will that fiery ideologue run anyway, proclaiming his love for Trump all the way?
It’s not as easy being party boss as it might seem. Republicans love Trump so much they are literally falling over each other to run with his banner whether he likes it or not.
