Both parties agreed on this tumultuous midterm election’s essential point. President Trump wanted voters to “pretend I’m on the ballot.” With his approval at 38%, Democrats happily agreed.
The results were catastrophic for Republicans. They lost almost everywhere, including places where defeat was once unimaginable.
Republicans dropped from 53 in the Senate to no more than 46, with losses in Iowa, Kansas, Ohio, South Carolina and Texas as well as Georgia, North Carolina and Maine.
In the House, Democrats are expected to have around 258 seats, a pickup of at least 43. Many Republicans in supposedly safe districts narrowly escaped defeat.
Democrats gained at least five governorships, giving them a majority for the first time in 16 years. The entire statewide GOP ticket in Texas lost. Democrats also picked up at least 500 state legislative seats, and flipped at least 11 chambers, including the state Houses in Georgia, North Carolina and Texas. They will take full control of the legislatures and governorships of Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and possibly Arizona.
This midterm will be remembered decades from now. Republican losses were massive and consequential. What explains the scope of the GOP defeat?
The national environment was toxic. In the NBC News exit poll, nearly half of voters said the cost of living was a “crucial” consideration in their vote. Another 40% said it was a “major” factor. Nearly two-thirds said Mr. Trump’s policies made the economy worse while 62% said they raised prices.
With numbers like that, Republicans were going to have a tough night. But the president made things much worse. Nearly 2 of 3 voters said he had the wrong priorities. Sixty-two percent said he put his personal interests above the country’s while 90% said government corruption was a “crucial” or “major” factor in their vote.
Mr. Trump’s frequent rallies made him the center of attention. He dominated coverage with wild accusations, sloppy insults, and over-the-top bragging. He weirdly focused on the physiques of male candidates. No discipline, no forward-looking message, no substantive line of attack. Just whatever came to his mind as he rhetorically meandered for more than an hour at each rally. He called it “the weave.” It was really a mess.
Mr. Trump also repeated President Joe Biden’s mistake of telling voters not to believe their own experience. They were witnessing, he claimed, “the most successful economy” in “a Golden Age of America.” This angered—even enraged—voters concerned their paychecks were growing slower than prices.
The president thought promising every adult $5,000 if they voted Republican would swing the election. It backfired. Most Americans took it as a thinly veiled bribe he knew he couldn’t deliver.
Republican losses would have been smaller if Mr. Trump spent more time being president and less as campaigner-in-chief. Disciplined messaging focused on economic concerns might have improved his standing and lifted more GOP hopefuls.
