DONALD TRUMP THẤT BẠI Ở BẦU CỬ MIDTERM VÀ NGẬP NGỪNG CHO 2024./-Mt68
___________
Amid midterm letdown, Trump grapples with political future
From CNN's Gabby Orr and Kristen Holmes
Donald Trump wanted to catapult himself into a third presidential campaign with a wave of Republican midterm gains behind him. Instead, he emerges from Tuesday's underwhelming election night facing questions about his political future and with momentum behind Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — his potential chief nemesis in a 2024 primary.
With key races still too early to call in Arizona and Nevada, and with Georgia heading to a Senate runoff, Trump entered Wednesday with few victories to tout and the possibility that they might soon be overshadowed by further losses.
His chosen candidates for open Senate seats in Ohio and North Carolina prevailed, as did incumbent Republican Sen. Ron Johnson in Wisconsin. But he lost a critical Senate contest in Pennsylvania, where Mehmet Oz, whom he backed in the primary despite widespread concerns about his electability, was defeated by Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman.
In Michigan, Trump's candidate in the governor's race failed to unseat Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. And while Republicans still appear to be on track to capture a House majority, it is likely to be far slimmer than initially thought.
"As powerful as Trump is in the Republican party, we learned that he cannot anoint anyone a winner. You still need candidates who have the fundamentals," said Bryan Lanza, a longtime Trump adviser.
Others were more blunt in their assessment of Tuesday's known outcomes.
Rep. Troy Nehls, a Texas Republican who won reelection and was endorsed by Trump, appeared to cast the former president as a drag on other GOP candidates in a radio interview Wednesday.
"There's just a lot of negative attitudes about Trump," Nehls said.
In the early hours of Wednesday morning, a current Trump adviser, who requested anonymity for fear of retribution, conceded that Trump "is in a tough spot coming out of tonight."
"Two narratives are going to take hold over the next week and neither one is going to be easy to dispel," the adviser said.
Acutely aware of his unprecedented involvement in Republican primaries earlier this year, this adviser and other Trump allies said they expect the former president will be blamed for elevating flawed candidates in some of the party's most important contests — especially Oz, a daytime talk show host who had barely resided in Pennsylvania before launching his Senate campaign there.
Trump's disappointment was palpable inside the gilded ballroom at his Mar-a-Lago estate, where he gathered with dozens of aides, allies and donors to watch returns on Tuesday evening. When he returned to the party halfway through the night following a private dinner, his mood had visibly shifted.
"Interesting evening," he shouted to reporters before taking the stage for brief and unenthused remarks.
As the crowd dwindled, Trump sat at a table in front of a television tuned to Fox News with just a handful of advisers. Meanwhile, several guests whose names appeared on a VIP list that one Trump adviser circulated to reporters were nowhere to be found, including some who apparently decided to skip the event — surfacing as television pundits throughout the night from studios elsewhere in the country.
The end result was the exact scenario Trump's advisers had hoped to avoid: an election where his top recruits fizzled or flopped and his primary Republican rival soared to new stardom.
Read more here.
No comments:
Post a Comment