Trump’s Republicans Only Have Themselves to Blame for This Disaster

The first thing you notice on election night is the live billboards. Screens broadcasting second-by-second changes in political betting markets like Polymarket and Kalshi are dotted throughout New York City, as “traders” wager money on the likely winners of races big and small, from Senate to the Texas railroad commission.

It didn’t take long for the boards to turn a deep blue. There had been no Hail Mary for the Republicans, no miracle in the form of yet another significant underestimation of GOP support by pollsters. Axios’s Stef Kight captured the scale of the damage: “a year ago, North Carolina and Georgia were expected to be the toss-up Senate races of the cycle. Both were called for Democrats before 8:30pm.” This time around, what looked bad really was bad. And the Republicans only had themselves to blame.

The signs of a blue wave were early and obvious. An initial set of results in Kentucky’s sixth district showed the Republican candidate Ralph Alvarado significantly underperforming in a Trump +15 seat – striking given its majority-rural population, a voter group that normally supports Republican candidates overwhelmingly but which has soured over tariffs and the war in Iran increasing fuel (and specifically diesel) costs.

Supporters react after US Senator Jon Ossoff (D-GA) won reelection in the US midterm elections during an Election Night rally in Atlanta, Georgia, 

Supporters of US Senator Jon Ossoff celebrated in Atlanta, Georgia Credit: REUTERS/Carlos Barria

There were unbelievable swings in other strongly Trump-supporting states, with early senate results in Kansas leaving Republican staffers sucking their teeth. The trend was evident almost everywhere: the first exit polls showed an electorate more similar to 2018 than 2024.

Then came the kicker. Some states aren’t just important for control of the levers of power. They’re important psychologically. They are places a party needs to hold on to if it’s to understand itself.

Florida is one of those Republican states. In some sense it is the national headquarters of the GOP. Even the most wine-drunk #Resistance liberals never deluded themselves to think they’d get a good showing there. But then the results dropped showing a +20 Democrat shift from 2022. And then there was Texas. I received a series of incredulous messages from insiders watching the slow-motion car crash that was Greg Abbott’s governor race. When his Democrat rival won, the night was over. It wasn’t even close.

South Carolina isn’t a purple state. It’s a red state, one of the fastest growing in the union. But Darline Graham, sister of the late Lindsey Graham, managed to lose it. Her underperformance fits in with a narrative that some within the GOP will be desperately clinging on to in the coming weeks: that the failure in the midterms is primarily an issue of Republican candidate quality.

Darline Graham was a bad campaigner with no credentials, she was joined in the circle of shame by Ken Paxton in Texas, Roger Marshall in Kansas, and Vivek Ramaswamy in Ohio – who simultaneously managed to disgust moderates with his tasteless attack ad on Amy Acton and the Right for his previous public statement effectively blaming the misfortunes of Americans on their own supposed laziness.

Moderate Democrats have been winning big, buoyed by a careful candidate selection strategy that learnt the painful lessons of 2024. Gender ideology and anti-white race politics have been sidelined in favour of economic populism and opposition to Israel. Georgia’s senate was called for Jon Ossoff after only 24 minutes. A high-profile opponent of President Trump, he made a name mocking the president’s claims that the election in 2020 was stolen. His re-election was never a surprise – but the scale of his victory means that all eyes will be on him for 2028.

Supporters of Democratic US Senate candidate and former North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper reacted at his election party in Raliegh

Supporters of Democratic US Senate candidate and former North Carolina governor Roy Cooper reacted at his election party in Raleigh Credit: REUTERS/Jonathan Drake

Voters had made their views abundantly clear on their priorities long before last night: they want a strong economy, and they don’t want Middle Eastern adventurism. One of the most significant pieces of analysis on election day came from an interview with Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who evidently believes he has a shot in 2028. “Some of these Republicans are saying, ‘Oh, well, the gas, don’t worry. It’s no big deal.’ Or they’re trying to blame Biden. No, no. Listen, we’ve just got to be honest… it’s higher because of the Iran conflict.”

It’s the economy, stupid, which means it’s also the Iran war, stupid. Trump’s admin got cocky and made unforced errors. They forgot their coalition would only support them as long as the price of gas and groceries stayed low. Dump the post-2024 hubris, Republicans, and you might still have a hope in hell for 2028.

Poppy Coburn, Associate Comment Editor

This commentary publish on Telegraph
Views in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect CGS policy.