Going into the 2022 Midterms, Republicans were confident that Joe Biden and Democrats’ many failures would result in a massive red wave on Election Day.
But that supposed red wave only resulted in a mere red ripple throughout most of the country.
And now the verdict on the 2022 Midterms is in and the quicker all Republicans accept it the better.
The Republican post-mortem
From the middle of October until polls began closing across the midwest, prevailing wisdom on the 2022 Midterms was that Republicans would win a comfortable majority in the U.S. House, while the U.S. Senate would be closer but would likely break for a small GOP majority.
The economy, inflation, skyrocketing gas prices, crime in Democrat-controlled cities, and the Biden border crisis were all supposed to be top issues that favored Republicans.
Democrats even gave Republicans the gift of outright dismissing all those issues, essentially spitting in the faces of working class Americans, and focusing instead on January 6, “Republican extremists,” and abortion.
Needless to say, it should have been a walk in the park for the GOP.
But now that the votes have – for the most part – been counted, the reality of the political landscape proved to be far different than anyone anticipated.
In the end, as Republicans begin their Midterm post-mortem, one thing is clear – the establishment elite and hardcore Trump-wings of the Republican Party failed.
End of story.
What happened?
Of all the mistakes and failures made in the Midterms, none was more expected than the Republican establishment failing to support Republican nominees.
In September, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) pulled millions of dollars in reserved ad spending in Arizona as revenge for Trump-endorsed Republican Blake Masters winning the state’s Primary.
Furthermore, the Republican establishment spent all of September and October playing catch up in crucial states, like Nevada, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, after Democrats out-spent Republicans by roughly $30 million through the end of August in Senate races nationally, according to CNN.
And once McConnell and his lackeys began spending in these crucial battleground states at the same rate as Democrats, they were simply too far behind and ran out of time to close the remaining gap.
At the same time, it’s not all down to Mitch McConnell and the Republican establishment.
It may be difficult for some to accept, but Donald Trump also let Republicans down, as many of his endorsed candidates failed to close and generally underperformed expectations.
To make matters worse, Trump’s political action committee closed the 2022 Midterms with over $100 million in cash on hand – money that could have made the difference in many of the close races Trump-backed candidates found themselves in.
Possibly Trump’s biggest loss of the night came in Pennsylvania, where his handpicked candidate and celebrity friend, Dr. Mehmet Oz, lost to Democrat John Fetterman despite his inability to speak coherently after a near-fatal stroke in May severely depleted his mental faculties.
Put simply, regardless of what you may think about how the 2020 Presidential election went down, Trump’s constant harping about a stolen election is not turning out voters for Trump-backed candidates nationally.
And as many prominent conservatives have pointed out, it likely won’t turn out voters in 2024 either.
Trump has 0 shot at 2024 general. After tonight, this isn’t up for debate. I was around in 2015 when he had “no chance,” and accurately said he’d win. Threw biggest inauguration event in 2017.
Times change or he changed or whatever.
DeSantis in 2024 or accept total defeat.
— Cernovich (@Cernovich) November 9, 2022
Republicans’ path forward
The lone real, true bright spot of the night for Republicans was undoubtedly the state of Florida.
And based on Republican Governor Ron DeSantis’ – and all Republicans for that matter – incredible performance, many Republicans believe the 2022 Midterms are now the launching point for the DeSantis era.
“Ron DeSantis won his last gubernatorial race by 30,000 votes,” Daily Wire founder Ben Shapiro wrote on Twitter. “He turned that into a historically large victory and along with the rest of the state GOP, turned a heretofore purple state bright red. Good things to remember for Republicans going forward.”
In 2022, he won by nearly 20 points – more than 1.5 million votes.
“What a massive, crushing message DeSantis sent tonight,” Republican political analyst Scott Jennings said, later adding, “How could you look at these results tonight and conclude Trump has any chance of winning a national election in 2024?”
But possibly the most accurate assessment of what Republicans should take away from Election Night 2022 came from conservative actor James Woods, who proclaimed “the DeSantis era has begun,” while putting the political fight ahead into proper context.
“One stunning truth exploded like fireworks on the Fourth of July tonight: The #DeSantis era has begun,” Woods tweeted. “No more limp-twisted Republican political hacks ‘reaching across the aisle’ will ever win again. This is war, and only warriors will win.”
Woods’ comments, of course, harken back to the late, great founder of Breitbart News, Andrew Breitbart, who famously declared #WAR on the woke radical Left and their lapdog allies in the Fake News Media long before “woke” and “fake news” were even in the American lexicon.
“And what the Left has stood for with political correctness is to try and get those with whom they disagree to shut up,” Breitbart explained in the 2012 documentary Hating Breitbart. “And the Tea Party movement, and Sarah Palin, and Michele Bachmann, and Allen West, and all the people that have gone out there against the mainstream media and said, ‘You’re going to call us racist, you’re going to call us potential Timothy McVeigh’s, f**k you.’ WAR.”
Conversely, as he celebrated a landslide victory in the battleground state formerly known as Florida, Governor DeSantis declared that “Florida is where woke goes to die.”
“We have embraced freedom,” the Governor declared. “We have maintained law and order. We have protected the rights of parents. We have respected our taxpayers and we reject woke ideology.”
“We fight the woke in the legislature,” he continued. “We fight the woke in the schools. We fight the woke in the corporations. We will never, ever surrender to the woke mob. Florida is where woke goes to die.”
The path forward for Republicans is clear.
And the sooner everyone accepts that, the quicker Republicans can get to work fixing everything Joe Biden and Democrats have broken.
Patriot Political will keep you up-to-date on any developments to this ongoing story.
