THE SPECIFIC NATURE OF TRUMP'S ENDORSEMENT "GAMBLE"

Here's a headline at The Washington Post:

The story, by Josh Dawsey and Michael Scherer, begins with Trump's decision to endorse Dr. Mehmet Oz in the Pennsylvania Senate primary.

“I’m a gambler,” Trump said, explaining to one adviser why he wanted to get into the Pennsylvania race, according to a person who heard his comments and who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to reveal private discussions.

With his endorsements of Oz, Senate candidate Ted Budd in North Carolina, gubernatorial hopeful David Perdue in Georgia and, on Friday, author and Senate candidate J.D. Vance in Ohio, Trump has leaped into the middle of several competitive primaries that could put his desired image as a kingmaker at risk.

We're told, at great length, the same thing we've been told in countless other articles: that Trump is inserting himself into too many races, and that he'll be weakened for his inevitable 2024 presidential run if a number of these candidates lose.

But I think Trump knows what he's doing. In many ways he's a very stupid person, but in this way he's smart: He knows that his base will respond well to any race in which his endorsee exceeds expectations. The more races he's in, the more victories he can claim.

But won't he also have more defeats? Well, sure -- but he'll just boast about the wins and never say a word about the losses (or find reasons to blame the candidates). His fans will focus on the wins and ignore the defeats. Trump's goal isn't to improve his win-loss record -- it's merely to increase the number of wins.

Trump has intuited that rank-and-file Republicans prefer anecdotes to data. We know that's true, of course. Studies tell us that immigrants commit fewer crimes than native-born Americans, but GOP voters obsess over individual stories of crimes committed by immigrants. (Trump does this too.) Data now suggests that progressive criminal justice policies aren't responsible for recent increases in crime, but right-wingers (and many people who aren't on the right) point to individual incidents as if they're indicative of overall trends.

Trump has intuited that this will apply to elections as well. Do polls show that he's struggling to persuade Georgia Republicans to reject Brian Kemp in the state's gubernatorial primary? Fine -- he'll find other high-profile races and endorse there. If Oz wins the Senate primary in Pennsylvania, Trump will take the credit. If Vance wins his Senate primary in Ohio, or Budd wins his in North Carolina, Trump will claim victory.

You'll say, "This is how Trump ran his business career, and he wound up massively in debt." You're right -- but he also wound up the most famous businessman of his generation. Millions of people voted for him in 2016 at least in part because they watched The Apprentice and thought he was the smartest CEO in America. (Participant in that recent New York Times focus group of conservative men: "I voted for Trump. I like Trump from when he was with 'The Apprentice.' I knew him as a businessperson. That’s why I voted for him.") If you're a good self-promoter, you shout about the wins and memory-hole the losses. It's always worked for Trump in the past, so why not now?