The Toomey Legacy: Trump or Warnock? No need for reprimanding the GOP after Tuesday’s midterm elections
Toomey’s comments highlight an ongoing rift within the GOP about how to respond to the party’s underwhelming performance in November’s midterm elections. Democrats expanded their majority in the US Senate by flipping the seat held by Pat Toomey, and narrowly won the US House of Representatives.
There is a group of Republicans who don’t feel like this is the right time for Trump or the party. Either they use what happened in the midterms to push him to the side, or he remains a dominant figure and they just keep losing elections.
In battleground Michigan, Trump-endorsed Tudor Dixon lost by 11 points to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a defeat that led to a blue wave down-ballot in the state. The Trump-backed incumbent lost in Illinois. Trump lost in the Maryland governor’s race.
The Senate race in Arizona is still too close to call and the candidate endorsed by the Trump campaign is trailing his opponent. Herschel Walker, another high-profile candidate backed by Trump, finds himself headed for a runoff in Georgia on December 6 against Sen. Raphael Warnock. And even in places where the Trump-supported candidate won – like Ohio – it took a massive outlay of cash from national Republicans (roughly $30 million) to drag J.D. Vance across the finish line.
On his Truth Social websiteFriday, Trump declared a “Big Victory”, but he’s completely unwilling to consider that he’s anything but an unalloyed good for his party.
There is a portion of the Republican Party that believes in that and will follow Trump wherever he goes.
The Point: Toomey can’t be congratulated too strongly for his bravery in speaking out against Trump, given that he has one foot already out the door. His voice is part of a chorus of Republicans suggesting that Tuesday’s election was the final straw for Trump. Will the base voters listen?
The GOP is in a close battle for the House majority, after seeing its hopes of control of the Senate in 2023 dashed.
There are still several uncalled House races that will determine control. The election between Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker in Georgia will take place in December, but won’t decide the Senate majority.
The Republican Soul of the GOP: Donald Trump in the midst of the 2016 midterms after a critical Georgia Senate seat and his failed to take back the House
Trump is eager to launch his 2024 campaign for a variety of reasons, including, but not limited to, his desire to close off momentum for other contenders (most notably Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis) and, perhaps, to try to insulate himself from his own mounting legal problems. The GOP blame game is what he needs to change the story from his role in the midterms.
Instead, the Republican Party – thanks to Trump – will be thrust directly into the 2024 race, with the former president demanding endorsements and fealty from elected officials who are still in the midst of trying to figure out what the heck just happened last week.
The point is that Trump is important to him. He is the leader of the Republican Party, yes, but he simply does not prioritize the good of the party over his own good.
Donald Trump is facing a lot of criticism over his failure to take back the Senate and GOP leaders are at odds over his plan with the former president still maintaining a dominance over the party.
The GOP reckoning comes in the wake of the party leaving another critical Senate seat on the table – Georgia – and seeing Democrats expand their majority to 51-49.
And some top Republicans said the party’s refusal to reject Trump as their standard bearer – combined with the 2020 election denialism that is central to his platform – ultimately did them in and will cost them again in future cycles.
The Republican soul-searching is a crucial moment in the party’s history. Senate GOP leaders want to move on from the Trump years and court candidates who are more moderate in their appeal to suburban voters who did not like the former president.
In the new House GOP majority, where there is a hard-right bloc now holding sway over Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, these Republicans must contend with a powerful and vocal Trump-aligned group who demand that the GOP return to its conservative roots.
The Georgia loss is the latest in a long line of political problems that have caused a new rift in his party and raised major questions about his viability as a 2024 presidential candidate. In the wake of his Mar-a-Lago dinner with prominent antisemites, and subsequent call for the “termination” of the US Constitution, many on Capitol Hill see the loss in Georgia – along with shortfalls in Nevada, Arizona and Pennsylvania – as the final breaking point between him and his party.
He has to prove to people that he can win, but I think he is in a good position to get the nomination, Graham said. You will have some points of comparison if there are more people in the race.
Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2 Republican, said the GOP tried to focus the 2022 midterms on President Joe Biden and Democratic policies they argued were making inflation worse and intensifying problems at the US-Mexico border. Democrats got fresh fodder when Trump stumped for Adam Laxalt in Nevada and Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania late in the campaign season.
“In an election year where it should have been a referendum on the current administration and their policies, the Dems were in many cases able to turn it into a choice election because of Trump’s presence out there,” Thune told CNN. Was he a factor? I don’t think there is a question about that.
Independent voters are not willing to vote for candidates who are trying to steal the 2020 election, according to Senator John Thune.
“When I talked to voters … what they wanted to know is if their votes are never going to be diluted,” said Sen. Rick Scott, the Florida Republican and outgoing chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. “I think that’s what was really important.”
What does a Republican Candidate Really Need to Do if it is going to lose a Primary? Sen. Cornyn says the GOP needs to focus on mail-in voting
He did not say which seat he would defend, but he did say that he will let you know when he makes a decision.
He could offer a preview of how the Republicans will handle battles going forward in the potential GOP primary. A lot of people want a heavier hand to eliminate unelectable candidates, unlike when Scott chose not to engage in primaries through the NRSC.
“I think the fundamental lesson is it takes one kind of campaign to win a primary and it takes another kind of campaign to win a general election,” said Texas Sen. John Cornyn, a member of GOP leadership. If you want to run a general election, without appealing to a broader base of electorate, then you are going to lose.
Scott, who clashed with Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell this year over embracing a policy agenda that the Kentucky Republican repudiated, said the GOP needs to focus on another matter: Having a “good national message.”
Despite the disagreement over Trump, Republican senators up-and-down the line agreed that the party needs to put a renewed focus on mail-in voting, something that Trump demonized over the past few years.
“I think President Trump has had a very substantial impact on who’s going to win a primary and it hasn’t worked out well,” he said. We want to know that his endorsement will be the kiss of death.
What he has to say about the congressional republic after the 2018 Dec. 6 attack at the Capitol, or what he tells lawmakers about his plan
If Mr. McCarthy does have a plan, he has kept his leadership team in the dark about that, which some feel is a display of paranoia. Instead, he has been spotted in recent days around the Capitol and the Republican National Committee headquarters nearby with Jeff Miller, a Republican lobbyist who is among his closest confidants.
It was not clear whether Mr. McCarthy enlisted Mr. Trump to help his campaign, or if Mr. Trump was simply working on his own. The former president spoke to Eli Crane, a Republican congressman from Arizona, and RepresentativeRalph Norman, a Republican of South Carolina. Mr. Crane and Mr. Norman were part of a group of seven current and incoming Republican lawmakers who signed a letter with a list of concessions they are demanding from their leaders in the next Congress, including making it easier to force a vote to remove the speaker — something that Mr. McCarthy has so far resisted.
When Nancy Pelosi in 2018 found herself about a dozen votes short of what she would need to secure the speaker’s gavel, she quietly picked off defectors, methodically cutting deals to capture exactly enough support to prevail. Ms. Pelosi, renowned for her ability to arm-twist and coax, won seven votes by agreeing to limit her tenure, picked up another eight by promising to implement rules aimed at fostering more bipartisan legislating, and won over her sole would-be challenger by creating a subcommittee chairmanship for her.
The California Republican made a number of pledges in order to appease the right wing of his party. He called on Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, to resign if he didn’t do so. He promised Ms. Greene, who was stripped of her committee assignments for making a series of violent and conspiratorial social media posts before she was elected, a plum spot on the Oversight Committee.
He has threatened to investigate the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the Capitol, promising to hold public hearings scrutinizing the security breakdowns that occurred. He has met with ultraconservative lawmakers quietly in order to win them over. And on Monday night, he publicly encouraged his members to vote against the lame-duck spending bill to fund the government.
In an opinion essay, Representative Andy Biggs of Arizona, who is running as a protest candidate in the speaker race, noted that Mr. McCarthy had said before the midterm elections that he did not see grounds for impeaching any Biden administration officials. Mr. McCarthy had made a threat against the homeland security secretary.
What did Trump say on the campaign trail? What do we really know now, when do we know what it is like to be talking about?
I think that is happening. It doesn’t happen overnight, its not a flip of a switch. He still has a large following. But I do think his influence is waning,” he added.
“When Republicans had criticisms of [Trump] – I certainly think mine were valid – that doesn’t always sit well with folks who see him as carrying the fight to the other side. Some of that tribalism is in public political systems.
“Again, I think, as his influence wanes, the sort of conventional understanding of what words mean kind of gets restored over time. I’m not worried about that at this point.