The Red Tsunami That Wasn't

I gave myself a day to let the results of the midterms sink in, and as of now, my takeaway is that I just don't understand the rending of garments and gnashing of teeth on the Republican side. The bottom line is that what had been predicted for months, the Republican takeover of the House, appears all but certain. In fact, I briefly saw Fox News at the end of Bret Baier's hour yesterday, and Fox announced that the Republican takeover had been "called" (whatever that means), but nobody as far as I can tell has repeated it, even at Fox.

Nevertheless, the House Republicans are setting up for leadership elections, while the House Democrats aren't. This was going to be the key event of the cycle: with a Republican majority, the House can stop Democrat legislative initiatives, while Republican-controlled committees will have subpoena authority to pursue investigations into issues like COVID and the Biden family finances. The possibility of Republican control of the Senate is still open, but under the circumstances, the only big difference if the Democrats retain Senate control will be the ability to push through one or more of Biden's Supreme Court nominations -- but with a slim majority and unpredictable Republican senators, it would still be a likely outcome even if Republicans do win control.

Thus the key legislative outcome is already decided in Republcans' favor, which had been predicted by everyone. As my wife put it, you can cross the finish line in a jalopy, or you can do it in a limo, but you've still crossed the finish line. So why the rending of garments and gnashing of teeth? The answer probably has to do with Trump. Trump himself wasn't on the ballot, and interestingly, his record of endorsements according to ballotpedia isn't that different from prior years. His record of successful general election endorsements was 59% in 2018, 67% in 2019, 78% in 2020, 67% in 2021, and 78% in 2022 -- so in fact, he did slightly better this year than in several prior years.

But I think Don Surber captures the real reason for the disappointment:

We can spend months in denial but the fact is, Americans do not want Donald John Trump to be their president.

He did not save the Republican Party. He spent it.

. . . Governors Kemp, Sununu and DeSantis showed how Tuesday would have gone for Republicans without Trump. Republicans needed to gain 5 House seats. DeSantis delivered 4.

Dr. Oz showed how it went with Trump. That's how poisonous he has become in purple America. We, his fans, see the good in him and the evil in his enemies. But the majority doesn't and never will. It is a sale that cannot be made. There will be no second term from The Donald.

Looking at those individual data points, I can't disagree, although I'm not sure if there were other Republican candidates in the Pennsylvania and New Hampshire primaries who would have defeated the Democrats in the absence of Trump endorsements.

I would say that backing off at a greater distance, the Republicans have had two breakthrough figures since the 1990s, Newt Gingrich and Donald Trump. Both were able to turn the conventional wisdom upside down. Gingrich showed Republicans could win congressional majorities, which they hadn't done consistently since the 1920s. Trump brought down one political dynasty, the Bushes, and forestalled the creation of another, the Clintons. But neither could establish a stable electoral record himself. Having engineered the 1994 Republican upset victory in both houses of Congress, he served as Speaker of the House for only four years, forced to resign as Speaker and then resign his seat after a series of scandals and the failed strategy of impeaching Bill Clinton. Wikipedia quotes the New York Times describing him as "an expert in how to seize power, but a novice in holding it".

The same might be said of Trump. I think his biggest defect was relying on untested and unqualified advisers, who were in a constant state of churning. I'm not sure if this was much different from Gingrich, of whom it was said his opinions on anything depended on the person who'd talked with him most recently. Trump's instincts were often good, his delivery and execution less so, but his overall flamboyance was, as Don Surber suggests, his undoing.

However, as far as 2024 goes, I thionk Trump will be a sacrificial figure. It's clear that Trump has been the focus of Biden's 2024 reelection strategy, insofar as he's had one, and he was the focus of Democrat efforts to forestall a significant 2022 congressional victory by Republicans. The problem is that if, as predicted, Biden engineers an indictment of Trump in coming months, it will only take Trump out of the running for 2024 while leaving an open path for DeSantis to capitalize on his own 2022 victory and unify the party for 2024.

That's where I think the Democrat focus on Trump while ignoring DeSantis and other potential strong Republican candidates has been a serious miscalculation.