A year after promising viewers a “red tsunami” in the 2022 midterms, only to be left with egg on their faces after the GOP drastically underperformed, Fox News was once again wondering what went wrong after Democrats romped to victory in statewide elections on Tuesday night.
Despite recent polls showing President Joe Biden deeply underwater with voters and even losing to Donald Trump in several battleground states, the Democratic incumbent governor easily won victory over his MAGA-endorsed opponent in deep-red Kentucky. And over in Ohio, a state Trump won by eight points in 2020, voters overwhelmingly passed an amendment ensuring access to abortion care in the state’s constitution.
The continued drag that undoing Roe v. Wade has had on the GOP was especially apparent in Virginia, where Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin had promised to implement a 15-week abortion ban if the GOP was able to gain unified control over the state’s General Assembly. Instead, not only were Youngkin’s hopes of a Republican sweep dashed, but the Democrats now control both chambers.
To offer my trivial little analysis:
The GOP has happily made themselves into the Trumpism party even in elections where Trump isn’t even running.
Those hard core Trump supporters are only interested in Trump himself (just like Trump is only interested in himself), and aren’t as likely to bother if he isn’t personally involved. To all but the Trump die hards, Trump is odious and that stink has rubbed off to make his detractors very active to fight the GOP at large.
I fear that next year Trump will bolster GOP votes with his fanatics.