President Donald Trump scored a pair of badly needed victories Tuesday as his preferred candidates won Republican runoffs in South Carolina and Oklahoma, US media projected, bolstering his claim that he retains a powerful hold over the party's voters.
In South Carolina, Senator Darline Graham defeated veteran congressman Ralph Norman, according to projections from CNN and NBC. Trump had thrown himself into the race, campaigning for Graham in the state and urging supporters to vote as though his own name were on the ballot.
Trump-backed Mike Mazzei won Oklahoma's Republican gubernatorial runoff against state attorney general Gentner Drummond, whom the president had attacked as a "fake Republican."
The sweep interrupts a bruising run for Trump, whose endorsed candidates had lost 10 Republican contests this cycle, including six in the previous two weeks, as his own approval ratings fell sharply.
The results are also a personal vindication for Trump, who had insisted days earlier that his endorsements were "stronger than ever" and dismissed recent losses as acts of loyalty to candidates he knew faced difficult races.
- 'I'm on the ballot' -
Trump traveled to South Carolina to campaign for Graham and held a telephone rally on the eve of the vote.
"So what I really want you to do is pretend, please, that I'm on the ballot," Trump told supporters at a rally Friday.
The Trump-supporting MAGA Inc. political organization also spent more than $827,000 on voter calls and text messages -- a rare deployment of its reserves in this year's primaries.
In Oklahoma, more than $9 million has been spent on the runoff since Drummond narrowly finished ahead of Mazzei in the first round of voting in June, US media reported.
Trump has repeatedly attacked Drummond in part because he opposed a proposed $4 billion aluminum smelter backed by the president, arguing that the project could damage local land and communities.
Mazzei, a wealthy former state senator, publicly embraced the project shortly before Trump endorsed him.
