President Donald Trump has never made a secret of his plans for retribution. He has loudly and repeatedly called out Republicans who display any independence, and this month he has fought to get them out of office in a series of party primaries.

Here are some of the fellow Republicans whom Trump has worked to defeat in 2026:

First Up: GOP State Lawmakers in Indiana

After a group of Republican state senators in Indiana defied the president’s pressure to draw a new gerrymandered congressional map to help the party in the midterms, Trump took the unusual step of getting involved in a statehouse race. The president recruited challengers to run in the Republican primary, and they ousted five of the Republican lawmakers who had crossed him. One Trump-aligned ad likened a Republican lawmaker who had voted against the map to toilet paper and called him “soft, weak, liberal.”

Second Target: Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana

Cassidy earned Trump’s enmity when he voted to convict Trump during his second impeachment trial after the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. He was one of just seven Republican senators who did so. Cassidy tried to make amends, including by backing Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to become health secretary. (It was not an easy decision for Cassidy, a physician who had led a vaccination campaign in Louisiana.) It didn’t put him back in the president’s good graces. Trump supported a challenger, and Cassidy, a two-term Republican, finished third in a primary there Saturday. Cassidy will not advance to the runoff June 27.

Third Up: Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky

Massie, who represents northern Kentucky, has been an outspoken critic of Trump over the war in Iran, aid to Israel and the handling of the Epstein files, among other issues. Trump made taking him down a priority. Trump supported a challenger, Ed Gallrein, a retired Navy SEAL, and held a rally in March in the district where he took aim at Massie, saying, “We’ve got to get rid of this loser.” The race became the most expensive House primary in recent history, and when it was over, Massie had lost.

Fourth Target: Brad Raffensperger, in Georgia

Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, enraged the president after the 2020 election when he refused to help him “find” votes to reverse Joe Biden’s victory in the state. This year, as Raffensperger ran for Georgia governor, Trump backed Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, a candidate opposing Raffensperger. It worked: Raffensperger came in a distant third in the primary Tuesday.

Next Week’s Target: Sen. John Cornyn of Texas

Trump stunned many in the political world this week by backing Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, who is challenging Cornyn as he fights for reelection to a fifth term. Republican leaders in the Senate said they were livid at Trump’s intervention in the race just one week before the runoff election. Several said they believed that if Paxton, who has been haunted by accusations of scandals, becomes the Republican nominee, the party is at risk of losing the seat to James Talarico, a Democrat who has been extremely successful at fundraising. On social media, Trump wrote Paxton had been “extremely loyal to me and our AMAZING MAGA MOVEMENT,” complained that Senate Republicans had not advanced parts of his agenda and claimed that Cornyn “was not supportive of me when times were tough.”

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Jennifer Medina/Audra Melton
c. 2026 The New York Times Company