Republican blowback at Trump after limited election gains
Former president reportedly ‘livid,’ ‘screaming at everyone’ over midterms results
WASHINGTON (AFP) — Donald Trump was hoping to surf a Republican “red wave” to a fresh White House bid, but with only limited gains in Tuesday’s midterm elections — and an outstanding result for his chief intraparty rival — the former U.S. president seems to be left out to sea.
Trump, who has teased the potential launch of a presidential campaign on Nov. 15, remained in the spotlight throughout the campaign — putting his thumb on key Republican primaries and holding rallies nationwide, during which he repeated his baseless claims of fraud in the 2020 race.
But with several of his hand-picked candidates underperforming — some even losing Republican-held seats to Democrats — analysts and some in his party are blaming him for the party’s underwhelming election night.
Meanwhile, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who has barely hidden his intent to run for president in 2024, resoundingly won reelection, cementing the rising Republican star’s position as a formidable Trump opponent.
An editorial published Wednesday in conservative-leaning Fox News called DeSantis “the new Republican Party leader,” while the front page of the New York Post dubbed him “DeFuture.”
“It should have been extremely easy for Republicans to take back control of the House and the Senate, and to do so by a wide margin,” University of Chicago’s Jon Rogowski told AFP, pointing to the negative economic environment and Biden’s low approval ratings.
“Many of the candidates he (Trump) endorsed underperformed and cost their party a chance at picking up seats that should have been winnable,” said the political scientist.
“Other Republican candidates with whom he’d feuded publicly won their seats easily.”
Georgia’s Republican governor Brian Kemp, for example, came under the ire of Trump for certifying Biden’s 2020 win in his state, and the former U.S. president endorsed his opponent in the primary.
Kemp and Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, also a Trump target, both easily won reelection.
The midterm results show that “you can be a conservative, you can be principled, you can oppose Trump — and win,” Peter Loge, a media professor at George Washington University, tells AFP.
Geoff Duncan, Georgia’s lieutenant governor and longtime critic of the former president, told CNN Wednesday morning: “I think Donald Trump’s moving from a movement to a distraction for the Republican Party.”
Before the election on Tuesday, lead Senate Republican Mitch McConnell had voiced concern over the “quality” of some Trump-backed candidates.
In Pennsylvania, Democrats were able to flip a highly-prized U.S. Senate seat with constant attacks on the Republican candidate, celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz, who had never held public office before and lived mostly in New Jersey.
The Republican candidate for Pennsylvania’s gubernatorial race, the right-wing and anti-abortion Doug Mastriano, who was present at the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol, also lost.
Some notable exceptions, however: the Trump-backed candidate for the U.S. Senate seat from Ohio won, as did more than 100 Republican candidates who challenged the 2020 presidential election results, according to U.S. media projections.
Trump on Wednesday morning was “livid” and “screaming at everyone,” according to CNN reporter Jim Acosta, citing an advisor to the former president.
While he admitted that the election results were “somewhat disappointing,” Trump on Wednesday posted to his Truth Social page that “from my personal standpoint it was a very big victory,” pointing to the likely Republican win in the House.