How elections worldwide are testing Trump’s influence abroad

In August, President Donald Trump claimed that 97% of Republican candidates he backed had won their primary races.

And it’s true that Trump has shown an ability to influence races particularly in Republican primaries, picking off politicians he didn’t like such as Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky.

But while he hasn’t shied away from expressing his opinions on foreign leaders, his influence over other countries’ elections is proving less strong.

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won reelection on Sunday, defeating Trump-aligned Flávio Bolsonaro, whose father Jair had also been a Trump ally.

Also last weekend, a student-led movement in Serbia defeated the ruling party of Aleksandar Vucic, a populist leader who had cultivated ties with Trump and his circle. Vucic had served as Serbia’s president from 2017, and as prime minister from 2014 to 2017.

During his concession speech, Vucic said that the loss was due to a “legitimization of a revolution carried out by the people with direct support from various European countries and the American deep state, the one that opposes President Trump.”

Earlier this year, Vice President JD Vance had visited Hungary for two days and publicly backed then-Prime Minister Viktor Orban. However, Orban, who is also a staunch ally and endorsed by Trump, lost that election and was ejected from office after 16 years.

In October, Trump also endorsed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for reelection. While the results of the Oct. 27 election are not finalized yet, the Associated Press said that Netanhayu’s Likud party had appeared to lose its majority in the country’s parliament.

Still, Trump’s influence on any one global election remains variable, experts said.

“Elections are always national first and regional or global a very distant second,” Cas Mudde, professor of international affairs at the University of Georgia, told CNBC.

Furthermore, it is also not clear that Trump ever had a great influence over far-right actors elsewhere, said Stijn van Kessel, professor of comparative politics at Queen Mary University of London.

“Far-right parties and politicians like to celebrate each others’ victories as it allows them to portray themselves as part of a successful global movement,” he said, adding that those relationships can sour quickly when national interests collide and the foreign partner turns toxic in the eyes of the domestic electorate.

Van Kessel pointed to the fallout between Trump and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni earlier this year, which stemmed from Italy’s refusal to allow U.S. aircraft to use one of the NATO airbases for its war on Iran.

Trump later claimed that Meloni “begged” him for a photo at the G7 summit, a claim…