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Well, folks, this week did not go as almost every polling average, racing handicap, and TV pundits predicted. To put it simply, the “red wave” did not happen. Not at all. Election Day was Tuesday, now it’s Thursday and we still don’t know for sure which party controls the US Senate or House of Representatives.
It looks like everything in the upper house will come down to what happens in Georgia, where a runoff took place after neither Raphael Warnock nor Herschel Walker exceeded 50 percent.
Meanwhile, in the balance of power in the House, Republicans won only a few seats, and the final result depends on the snail-paced counting of votes in Western states. It looks like the Republican Party will take control, but after what happened on Tuesday, it seems unwise to take anything for granted.
The biggest winners in the 2022 midterm elections are Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis – announced on The New York Post’s Wednesday cover as “DeFUTURE” – J.D. Vance, who was successful in Ohio, and New York Republican Lee Zeldin, who won in a distance strike to unseat Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul while increasing turnout, which led to the victory of candidates who did not receive votes. It’s worth noting that Zeldin’s running mate, Elise Stefanik, also deserves credit for Empire State Republicans’ success on Tuesday night.
But as for the midterm losers, there are RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, NRCC Chairman Rep. Tom Emmer (R-MN), NRSC Chairman Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) and former President Donald Trump. After hearing what they said over the first 10 months of 2022, and then seeing the results coming in since Tuesday, one can only ask: What were these Republicans doing?
In Wednesday’s guide, I delved into the answers and accountability GOP leaders owe to their party’s voters – what the hell happened in border district House races, supposedly uncomplicated seats in Virginia, and gubernatorial races where GOP challengers tried to take down unpopular Democrats who have failed their citizens during Covid-19 and overseen an enhance in violent crime?
But now, faced with calls from GOP voters and possibly some of their own accountability candidates, these Republican leaders are doubling down on their inexplicable actions and apparently trying to make their situation even worse.
Ronna McDaniel on Fox News Wednesday afternoon he claimed that the RNC never used the term “red wave” in 2022 before misleadingly stating that a red wave “happened.” But in fact, the RNC did mention a coming “red wave,” and there was definitely no surge in the Republican Party’s popularity on Tuesday.
All it takes is a cursory search of GOP and McDaniels tweets to find numerous examples of “red wave” hype being used earlier in 2022. So why claim that the national party “never” raised hopes for a “red wave” in November?
As for the committees tasked with securing, protecting and expanding the GOP majority in Congress, we’ve already written about how Sen. Rick Scott was on a yacht in Italy in August when the NRSC was running out of funding just as voters began tuning in en masse in races medium term. Was it the result of misplaced trust? Wrong priorities? Just bad planning?
As for Rep. Tom Emmer, what was he doing directing NRCC funds into three six-figure, last-minute ad purchases in congressional districts that Biden carried by 20 points in 2020? Why not make targeted purchases to ensure that more drawable districts turn red on election night?
Of course, after the polls closed and the election was called on Tuesday, it became clear that Republicans would not see a red wave sweeping through Biden +20 districts, and Emmer’s efforts did not result in much gain in many districts where flipping occurred. that could benefit from more funding in the final days of the mid-term campaign.
Unlike Emmer’s efforts to expand the GOP congressional map into territory that has become unimaginable, Democratic campaign groups cherry-picked their battle map, made some hard choices when it came to allocating ad dollars and were able to keep the GOP on such a slim margin that it is still not known for sure who will control the House in the next Congress. Why did the NRCC throw money at long-term races instead of supporting GOP officials and spending money in districts that could win more?
Then there was House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy. As Vespa reports, McCarthy’s “victory” (what?) speech came more than six hours after he told supporters to go to an event in D.C. to celebrate what he said would be a decisive Republican victory.
Vespa noted that the comments were “inaudible” when, around 2 a.m. Wednesday, McCarthy finally showed his face and promised: “When you wake up tomorrow, we will be in the majority and Nancy Pelosi will be in the minority.” But when most Americans woke up on Wednesday, that still wasn’t the case.
McCarthy presented his “Commitment to America” as an interpretation of Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America” with the promise that it would win over voters and become a model for their hearty majorities in the up-to-date Congress. What happened there?
Last but certainly not least is Trump. What the hell did he do from Tuesday night to Wednesday morning? First, he posted a celebratory post on Truth Social cheering Republican candidate Joe O’Dea’s loss in the U.S. Senate election in Colorado, which made… no sense.
If Trump really intends to run and win in 2024, he’s going to need affable senators, or at least as many with an “R” next to their name, as possible, if he wants to get anything done. Sure, Murkowski, Collins and Romney don’t always agree with the rest of the Republican conference, but they’re more likely to support than a Democrat.
Trump also ripped one of his candidates, Don Bolduc, whom he endorsed in New Hampshire, for losing the Senate race to incumbent Maggie Hassan. According to Trump, Bolduc failed because he did not talk about the 2020 election results as often as the former president wanted.
But where was Trump’s financial support in New Hampshire and elsewhere after his endorsement helped propel major general election candidates? He bragged about how much he raised for his midterm candidates, but the amount he spent was a fraction of what his PACs brought in. Why the hesitancy to spend money that could support Bolduc and Oz win or support Herschel Walker avoid a runoff in Georgia?
After Tuesday night and the rest of this week’s results, GOP voters and conservative activists are deeply disappointed and have increasing questions about how so many leaders in the national GOP apparatus got so far ahead of themselves to achieve an overall disastrous result in a year that should have been uncomplicated win.
If these same leaders now nonchalantly try to pass by without acknowledging their role in what went wrong, it will not be possible. It’s time for answers about what Republican leaders did in the run-up to Tuesday, and it’s time for answers about what Republicans are doing now to make sure this doesn’t happen again.
