In his “Politics,” the philosopher Aristotle discusses that local government is most important and accountable in the maintaining of a virtuous life for its subjects.

This is another presidential election year, and Republicans, who once believed that Donald Trump was a ballot booster for them, may be surprised by the lack of enthusiasm voters have in their choice for local representation and how it may end up dragging Trump down in the Electoral College.

The staying power of the former president is an unfortunate reality for the Republican party. No matter the outlandish claim, no matter the felonious accusation, him remains an indomitable force, destined to be chosen by Republican primary voters for reasons unknown. But in a close election, Trump doesn’t need voters drawing negative associations between Trump and the down-ballot candidates he endorsed. But that is exactly the problem he faces.

The first and most unpredictable of those risks comes out of Arizona, where a Senate race is in full swing to fill the seat vacated by Kyrsten Sinema, who announced in March that she would not run for re-election. Republican primary voters, in their wisdom, have entrusted Kari Lake to carry their banner across the finish line there.

Lake, a former journalist who quit her 22-year career to enter politics in politics in 2022, also brandishes the Trump endorsement. In fact, she campaigned first for that distinction, spending the interim months after Trump kicked off his reelection campaign doting after him, making his short-list for the vice-presidential nod. 

Failing that, she got the conciliatory prize — the Trump endorsement — and with it, the good primary voters of the Republican party helped her handily beat her closest opponent, Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb, by 16 percentage points.

Now she is in danger of being of two-time loser in Arizona political contests, having failed to win the governorship of The Grand Canyon State two years ago. Currently, she trails Democratic challenger Ruben Gallego by six percentage points, according to the latest USAToday/Suffolk University poll. 

The panic is over more than one poll, though, with most saying Lake is at least six percentage points behind, and a Fox News poll has her trailing by 13. 

This is another case of the Trump base elevating a candidate that the rest of the general voting public finds unpalatable. Lake’s trouble is the same as many who have failed before. She has been a long-time election denier — first echoing Trump’s claims about 2020 and then suing, unsuccessfully, over her own loss in her gubernatorial run.

So far, the effect Lake has on Trump’s chances appear to be minimal, though Trump lost the state to Biden by around 10,000 votes in 2020. That is not the sort of margin you want to take chances on. Thus far, Trump leads Harris in the state 48% to 42%.

It is rare that such broad ticket splitting happens, but it has been more common in the age of the Trump-endorsed candidate. One such example occurred in 2020, when voters gave Biden the White House but handed the House to Republicans and split the Senate down the middle.

The more predictable risk to Trump is his endorsed candidate for the North Carolina governor, Mark Robinson, who he called “Martin Luther King on steroids.” His logic in that compliment is hard to follow as a recent reporting from CNN found that Robinson posted sexually explicit and graphic messages on a pornographic forum from 2008-2012.

In those comments, Robinson referred to himself as “black Nazi,” and expressed an affinity for transexual-themed porn, a surprise since candidate Robinson has called that particular demographic “filth” and has proposed ending the separation between church and state in order to further stifle them.

Robinson is now 17 percentage points behind his Democratic opponent, current state Attorney General Josh Stein. The CNN poll that reported on it follows Robinson’s negative trending that started when the news of the message board went public. As it stands, Robinson looks to face “the largest defeat in more than 40 years for a major-party nominee for governor in North Carolina,” the CNN poll reports.

This is not to mention the numerous representatives who have made congressional gridlock a ubiquitous headline. Republicans in the House have looked unable to govern for the past two years, as their narrow majority has been forced to contend with the recalcitrance of its Freedom Caucus, home of frequent Fox news guests’ Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz.

Now that it’s close to election season, these TV-personality-first Republicans are looking to send the government into another shutdown. This may make voters decide that the GOP isn’t looking after their interests at home. These voters have more at stake with interests at home being threatened. If Aristotle is to be believed, this may drive out more voters to the detriment of Trump. 

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