‘Not a Republican wave.’ GOP commentators react to midterms, with many blaming Trump
As results from the midterm elections stream in, the “red tsunami” that many Republicans had hoped for has not quite materialized. Control of both chambers of Congress still hangs in the balance, but no matter the result, the Democrats appear to have staved off a drubbing.
Republican officials and commentators reacted to the news with disappointment, with many calling for an improved crop of candidates in future races.
South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham said on NBC News that it was “definitely not a Republican wave, that is for darn sure,” adding that he predicted the final outcome in the Senate would leave a 51-49 or 52-48 split between Democrats and Republicans.
Given the rosy polling for Republicans in recent weeks and a historical trend of the incumbent party faring badly in midterm elections, GOP candidates across the country have largely underperformed so far. Jon Fetterman, the Democratic candidate for Senate in Pennsylvania, a closely followed swing state, defeated Republican Mehmet Oz. And in Virginia’s 7th congressional district, considered a bellwether for how the midterms might go more broadly, Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger beat Yesli Vega, her rival who’d been endorsed by former President Donald Trump.
Florida in particular bucked the trend as Gov. Ron DeSantis, considered a rising star in the party, defeated former Gov. Charlie Crist, his Democratic opponent, by a nearly 20 percent margin, according to the Miami Herald. Republican candidates across the state saw significant gains compared to prior elections.
“We have Joe Biden who is the least popular president since Harry Truman, since presidential polling happened, and there wasn’t a red wave,” Marc Thiessen, a Fox News contributor and Washington Post columnist said on Fox News. “That is a searing indictment of the Republican party.”
“We need to look at who won today: Ron DeSantis, [Mike] DeWine, [Brian] Kemp, [Greg] Abbott…This is the path to the future,” Thiessen added. “Electing these radical candidates who ran far behind them has put the Republican party in a terrible position and voters have indicted the Republican party.”
Thiessen had previously written in September that “With all the serial catastrophes Biden and the Democrats have unleashed, there is no excuse for anything but a historic red wave this November.”
Ben Shapiro, a conservative commentator and founder of The Daily Wire, tweeted “Republicans wildly underperformed,” while Democrats “wildly outperformed expectations, except in Florida.”
“There is a lot of hope for the Republican coalition given their performance with Hispanic and black voters,” Shapiro added. “But their candidate quality was poor and their leadership was either absent or counterproductive.”
Several GOP officials have already begun to point fingers at Trump, casting doubt on his kingmaking abilities and his future in the Republican party.
“Just- all the chatter on my conservative and GOP channels - is rage at Trump like I’ve never seen,” tweeted Michael Brendan Dougherty, a senior writer at National Review.
“Trump picked bad candidates, spent almost no money on his hand-picked candidates, and then proceeded to crap on the Republicans who lost and didn’t sufficiently bend the knee. This will have 2024 impact,” Shapiro tweeted.
On the eve of the midterms, Trump had told NewsNation, “if [the Republicans] win I should get all the credit, and if they lose, I should not be blamed at all.”
A large cohort of Republican gubernatorial candidates endorsed by Trump, who have cast doubt on the legitimacy of the 2020 election, were defeated, including Tudor Dixon (Michigan), Doug Mastriano (Pennsyvania), Tim Michels (Wisconsin), Darren Bailey (Illinois), Dan Cox (Maryland) and Lee Zeldin (New York).
A “GOP source tells me ‘if it wasn’t clear before it should be now. We have a Trump problem,’” tweeted Fox News White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich.
This story was originally published November 9, 2022 at 9:19 AM with the headline "‘Not a Republican wave.’ GOP commentators react to midterms, with many blaming Trump."