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More of Donald Trump’s conservative foes are coming out of the woodwork as the GOP inches closer to a full-scale civil war in the wake of a dismal showing in the 2022 midterm elections. The Republican Party is now reeling as a so-called “red wave” predicted just hours before the polls closed failed to materialize and voters handed Democrats the keys to a Senate majority for the next two years. The latest blow in that regard came Saturday night, when news networks called the Nevada Senate race in favor of incumbent Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto in a final humiliating note for the GOP’s bid to retake the upper chamber. With the Georgia race headed for a runoff in December, the only question now is whether Democrats will expand their majority by one seat. Meanwhile, the House of Representatives remains in flux. A total of 11 seats are still up for grabs, enough to tip the balance of power either way. As of Sunday afternoon, Democrats had 203 seats, Republicans 212. Both parties have clear paths to a majority still on the table, a prospect that conservative pundits considered unthinkable just a week ago. Beyond control of the House, it’s clear that Republicans performed far worse than expected. Mainstream reporters, relying on polls that did not adequately represent a huge wave of young voters, were calling the House “lost” for Democrats before the first early votes were even cast. As Republicans face the question of whether they will be relevant on Capitol Hill for the next two years, the party has begun pointing fingers and creating scapegoats as its members look for an explanation for their failure. And at the top of the list of these scapegoats is Donald Trump. The former president has made no secret of his desire to control the fate of the Republican Party this election cycle, supporting key primaries and driving his impeachment supporters away from the party. The party’s crop of US Senate candidates has been molded in his image: a group of hard-nosed, young political newcomers with indiscriminate backgrounds and unfettered loyalty to their leader, eager to spread his conspiracies for the 2020 election. Therein lies the reason. for accountability, as GOP establishment figures such as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have warned for months that “nominee quality” issues could cost them their shot at the upper chamber. These concerns have now clearly been confirmed. Adam Laxalt, who has faced relentless criticism for his family’s political connections and elite pedigree, failed to oust the Senate’s most vulnerable Democrat, Kathryn Cortez Masto. In neighboring Arizona, Mark Kelly defeated Blake Masters, who after winning the primary continued to cultivate the image of a hardline conservative and Trump loyalist, even appearing in a campaign video with scandal-plagued Rep. Madison Cawthorn. Even in Ohio, where Trump endorser Jay DeVance defeated Congressman Tim Ryan for the state’s open U.S. Senate seat, the Republican did not credit Trump’s own 2020 results in the state. Enter Mr. Trump’s critics, who smelled blood in the water and jumped at the chance to hold him responsible for the GOP’s midterm defeat. Many, like Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, directly linked Trump and his 2020 candidates’ embrace of conspiracies to defeat (like Dan Cox of Maryland, who was soundly defeated by Democrat Wes Moore). Calling Tuesday’s election Mr. Trump’s third blow, Mr. Hogan appeared on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday to blame the former president and call on his party to adopt winning strategies. “That should have been a huge red wave. It should have been one of the biggest red waves we’ve ever had,” Mr Hogan argued, adding that those parroting Trump conspiracies were almost “universally dismissed”. Others, like New Hampshire GOP Gov. Chris Sununu, agreed. Mr. Sununu called Tuesday’s results a rejection of the “extremism” he said “many Republicans were painted with, rightly or wrongly.” He was pressed further on whether Trump and Trumpism were the “extremism” voters were supposed to be rejecting in an interview with ABC News. “I think there’s a far left and a far right,” he replied. “In that sense, I think a lot of people are saying, ‘Look, it’s not about depreciation, it’s about solving problems,’ right? Nancy Pelosi says Republican response to husband’s attack ‘shameful’ This sense that Mr. Trump has turned his politics into a means of seeking retribution against Joe Biden and his various other political foes has not only struck anti-Trump conservatives in elected office. The conservative media sphere, long one of Trump’s most important allies, appeared to turn on him in a near-even, one-for-one fashion in the days after the midterm elections. “Ron DeSandis is the new leader of the Republican Party,” GOP strategist Liz Peake said in a Fox News opinion piece published by the network shortly after the election. “The Biggest Loser?” wrote: “Donald Trump, whose handpicked loyalists in many races struggled to defeat vulnerable Democrats. Once again, the former president may have cost Republicans control of the Senate in a year they should have lost.” The Wall Street Journal editorial board repeated the attack: “Trump is the Republican Party’s biggest loser,” it said in an editorial. The opinion pages of the New York Post were equally brutal. The craziest moments from US midterm election night “The GOP and the country can do better than Trump (or Biden) in 2024,” the Post article read. “Like the vast majority of Americans of all parties, we desperately want better choices in 2024, not some freakish repeat of the 2020 election. What Biden and his party do is up to them, but the Republicans have a strong field of rising stars. Looking back is not the way to go. It’s time to get over Biden’s incompetence and Trump’s desperation and get over one of these new GOP stars.” That leaves Trump with fewer allies than at any time in recent memory as he prepares for what polls show six in 10 Americans don’t want: an announcement of his long-awaited 2024 presidential bid. Rumors swirled ahead of his campaign rally in Ohio that the former president planned to officially declare his candidacy that night. But a statement to supporters promising a major announcement in two weeks, scheduled for Tuesday, killed those chances, and now much of Washington and the wider political landscape is bracing for the inevitable circus that is sure to erupt with the start of of Donald Trump’s third attempt at the White House. Trump remains under at least one criminal investigation into the alleged illegal retention of documents, including highly classified material, at Mar-a-Lago. The Justice Department is also continuing a grand jury investigation into the Jan. 6 attack on Congress, while prosecutors in Fulton County, Georgia, are separately engaged in their own investigation into efforts by Mr. Trump’s team to influence the state’s election results. then the match was called.
