As the sheer number of missed Republican opportunities sunk in, the rush to openly indict Mr. Trump was as immediate as it was surprising. Conservative allies criticized Mr. Trump on social media and on cable news, questioning whether he should continue as party leader and pointing to his toxic political brand as the common thread woven through three consecutive lackluster election cycles. Mr Trump was held largely to blame for the Republicans’ lackluster finish in Tuesday’s election, as several of the candidates he had backed in competitive races were defeated – including gubernatorial and Senate candidates in Pennsylvania and governor of Michigan, N.Y. York and Wisconsin. “Republicans have followed Donald Trump over a cliff,” David Urban, a longtime Trump adviser with ties to Pennsylvania, said in an interview. Former Representative Peter King, a Long Island Republican who has long supported Mr. Trump, said: “I strongly believe that he should no longer be the face of the Republican Party,” adding that the party “cannot become a cult personality. “ The chorus of criticism, which unfolded on Fox News and on social media throughout the day, revealed that Mr. Trump is at his most politically vulnerable point since the January 6, 2021, attack on Capitol Hill. But Mr. Trump has built a deep well of loyalty with Republican voters, and party officials cautioned that it was too early to tell whether he would suffer any lasting political damage beyond a flurry of bad headlines or whether a challenger would emerge for to challenge him. Mr. Trump has built a career on long-running political disputes, and Trump aides insisted that any hint of weakness was a media concoction. “I am proud to endorse Donald Trump for President in 2024,” Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-New York, said in a statement. “It’s time for Republicans to unite around the most popular Republican in America who has a proven track record of conservative governance.” Senator-elect JD Vance, Republican of Ohio and an early pick of Mr. Trump, said he believed Mr. Trump would be the running mate if he ran. “Every year, the media writes the political obituary of Donald Trump. And every year, we are quickly reminded that Trump remains the most popular figure in the Republican Party,” he said. And Representative Jim Banks of Indiana said he supported Mr. Trump, who has “transformed our party.”
Who will control Congress? Here’s When We’ll Find Out.
Card 1 of 4 Much remains uncertain. For the second election day in a row, election night ended without a clear winner. Nate Cohn, The Times’ chief political analyst, takes a look at the state of the House and Senate races and when we might know the outcome: Home. The Needle suggests the House is leaning Republican, but the GOP is nowhere close to being declared the winner in several key races where late mail-in ballots have the potential to help Democrats. It will take days to count those ballots. The conclave. The Senate race will come down to four states: Wisconsin, Nevada, Georgia and Arizona. The pending ballots in Nevada and Arizona may take days to count, but control of the chamber may ultimately hinge on Georgia, which is headed for a Dec. 6 runoff. How we got here. Political conditions seemed ripe for Republicans to make big midterm showings, but voters had other ideas. While we wait for more results, read our five suggestions and analysis on why this ‘red wave’ didn’t materialize for the GOP Ms. Stefanik, Mr. Vance and Mr. Banks issued statements after The New York Times sought comment from an aide to Mr. Trump. Publicly, Mr. Trump put the best face on the results, pointing to dozens of wins for his candidates in less competitive races. In an interview Wednesday on Fox News, he pointed to Mr. Vance, who won a landslide victory, and Herschel Walker, the former football star, who will face Senator Raphael Warnock in the Georgia runoff. “We’ve had tremendous success – why change anything?” Mr Trump said when asked if he would delay his announcement. But at his home in Florida, Mr. Trump privately blamed Sean Hannity and casino magnate Steve Wynn, among others, for supporting Mehmet Oz, the defeated Pennsylvania Senate candidate. He included his wife, Melania, among those he alleged offered him bad advice, according to several people familiar with the discussions. Among Republican operatives open to working with another Trump presidential campaign, a handful said they were reconsidering. That could pose a challenge for Mr. Trump, who has a handful of trusted advisers but almost none yet staffed key aspects of a campaign-in-waiting. Kayleigh McEnany, Trump’s former White House press secretary and one of his longtime defenders, told Fox News on Wednesday that her former boss should hold off on an announcement until at least the Georgia Senate runoff. . UPDATED Nov. 9, 2022, 9:50 pm ET “He needs to put it on hold, absolutely,” Ms McEnany said. “If I’m advising any candidate, no one is announcing 2024 until we’re past December 6.” Mr Trump, however, has been teasing rally crowds for weeks with hints of another presidential bid – an effort intended to build on the momentum he has gained in what he repeatedly predicted would be a landslide Republican victory in the election. Tuesday. That would allow him to take credit for endorsing the winners, holding dozens of rallies to highlight them and, in a new spirit of benevolence, spending millions of dollars from his campaign coffers on ads to support them. Instead, the party fared much worse than expected, though it remains in control of one or both houses of Congress. On Wednesday, Mr. Trump was said to be furious with Mr. Hannity, who the former president often turns to for policy advice, and who was among several people who urged him to support Dr. Oz. In Arizona, where gubernatorial candidate Cary Lake and Senate candidate Blake Masters had campaigned together as “America First” candidates carrying Mr. Trump’s banner, both trailed as counting continued in races that it was very close. And in 36 House races that the Cook Political Report called tottering, Mr. Trump endorsed just five Republicans. Each lost on Tuesday. “Almost every one of these candidates that Trump supports that you see in competitive states has lost,” Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey, said Wednesday on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “It’s a huge loss for Trump. And, again, it shows that his political instincts are not about the party, they’re not about the country — they’re about him.” Mr. King said the results showed it was time for the party to move on and accused Mr. Trump of targeting political allies. “His self-promotion and his attacks on Republicans, including Ron DeSandis and Mitch McConnell, were largely responsible for the Republicans not having a red wave,” Mr. King said. “We cannot allow blind faith in Trump to determine the fate of our party.” Scott Jennings, a longtime adviser to Mr. McConnell, the Senate minority leader, pointed to exit polls that showed Mr. Trump was less popular than President Biden. He said that if Mr. Trump wanted to see a Republican president-elect in 2024, he should not run. Mr. Jennings suggested Mr. DeSantis, the governor of Florida, and Governor Glenn Youngkin of Virginia as possible alternatives. He called on those Republicans to act with urgency, pointing to the former president’s swift political recovery after his supporters rioted on Capitol Hill after Mr. Trump falsely told them he had been robbed of re-election. “The gap needs to be filled,” Mr Jennings said. “After Jan. 6, the GOP hesitated and quickly recovered. DeSantis can’t hold back.” Adding to Mr. Trump’s long night on Tuesday, one of the few bright spots for Republicans in the midterm elections came in Florida, where Mr. DeSantis — widely seen as Mr. Trump’s top alternative in 2024 — won re-election by the largest margin of any Republican in the 24 years the party has controlled the governor’s office in Tallahassee. The New York Post, one of Mr. Trump’s favorite publications, devoted its cover Wednesday to an election night photo of the 44-year-old governor celebrating with his young family. The tabloid’s headline, “DeFuture,” turned his family name into a compliment — just four days after Mr. Trump dismissed Mr. DeSantis as “DeSanctimonious” at a rally. On Wednesday, Mr. Trump pointed out on his social media site, Truth Social, that he had received more total votes in Florida during the 2020 presidential race than Mr. DeSantis won on Tuesday. However, Mr Trump’s margin of victory was only about a tenth of a back. It remains to be seen how durable Mr. Trump’s criticisms will prove to be, but in the immediate aftermath of the vote, some Republicans were willing to be unusually blunt in criticizing Mr. Trump. “Americans tend to support candidates who look forward rather than backward,” said Mr. Urban, a former Trump adviser. “If Trump can do that, people would be thrilled. But can it? If history is any judge, I don’t think it can and that’s a shame. He’s an incredibly capable politician in many ways, but in other ways, he just doesn’t get it.” Mike Cernovich, a conservative blogger and longtime defender of Mr. Trump, broke with his political ally on Wednesday, posting a series of messages to his one million Twitter followers in which…
