While traditionally midterms tend to be a disaster for the president’s political party, especially with 57% of Americans disapproving of President Joe Biden’s presidency, the Democrats managed to beat the odds on Election Day. A combination of Democratic voters rallied by the overturn of Roe v. Wade as well as former President Trump’s lingering unpopularity appears to have been a winning recipe on Nov. 8.
As of writing, some close races are still uncalled, however Democrats have at least maintained the current Senate split, giving the vice president the tying vote. The House, which Republicans were clearly favored to retake, still remains uncalled, further evidence of Republicans underperforming. Georgia will have a runoff election on Dec. 6 as neither candidate reached 50% as required by Georgia state law. This will be Sen. Raphael Warnock’s second runoff in two years with him looking for a repeat of his success in the 2020 campaign and giving the Democrats a chance at an outright majority if he wins.
Notably, Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, known for his feud with Trump, performed much better than Warnock and was easily reelected.
Gov. Ron DeSantis also won by the largest margin of any Florida governor in 40 years. He even won Miami-Dade county thanks in part to winning over the majority of Latino voters for the first time in his career.
Outgoing Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey reacted to this saying, “Last night across the country was a terrible night for Donald Trump, and an excellent night for Governor DeSantis. The more MAGA a candidate was, the more they tended to underperform even in their own states.”
Republicans flopped in most swing states, losing down the ballot in close Senate, governor and secretary of state races. While Trump has yet to announce his intention to run in the next presidential election, it’s clear he’d love the chance for a rematch against Biden in 2024. However, these midterms have cast doubt on if Trump can any longer be a winning leader for the Republican party.
This poor performance should be a wakeup call for the GOP, which practically had this election handed to them. The economy has struggled under Biden, with 40-year high inflation, high gas prices and low consumer confidence easy fodder for his opponents.
Moreover, public school performance has been dismal since the pandemic, with the Biden administration’s overly cautious approach to reopening schools hurting an already struggling system. Biden campaigned on ending the pandemic by listening to “the science,” but presided over its worst phase during the omicron surge by ignoring warnings from experts about the need to prepare for new variants.
Yet instead of a referendum on Biden’s arguably poor performance, this election turned into another referendum on Trump. Many Republicans doubled down on their support of Trump and his dubious claims about the 2020 election. Trump himself intervened in several Republican primaries to promote radical Republicans, a move that cost the party several close seats. Former Vice President Mike Pence’s former Chief of Staff Marc Short summarized the current leadership problem asking: “Are there different candidates out there where the issue set still works, but with a different style that is also more in our favor?”
So unless Republicans want to lose to Biden’s Democrats once again, they might want to replace Trump with almost anyone else.