Midterm elections made Biden stronger and Trump weaker. 2024 questions abound
by W. James Antle III, Politics Editor |
November 09, 2022 05:38 AM
Republicans desperately straining to see a silver lining in the red wave that appears to be more of a puddle at best have to look to 2024.
The midterm election results strengthened President Joe Biden’s hand and weakened former President Donald Trump’s. That is the starting point for the road to the White House.
In 1994, Republicans won 54 House seats and their first majority in 40 years. President Bill Clinton was reelected two years later. In 2010, Republicans added 63 seats. President Barack Obama was reelected two years later.
On the one hand, that shows there is little connection between the midterm elections and the next presidential race. But the link hasn't been nonexistent: Republicans make big gains at the expense of a hobbled Democratic president. Then that president runs against the excesses of the new GOP majorities to rebound politically and win a second term.
Tuesday night’s results may at least interrupt that pattern. Biden was the big Democratic winner. He was able to hold together the anti-Trump coalition enough to stave off defeat in a number of competitive races. His campaign travel schedule, anti-MAGA messaging, and predictions that the race would swing back toward the Democrats in the end appear to be vindicated. He looks stronger than Clinton or Obama did the day after their first midterm elections, and they both won a second term.
Trump was the big Republican loser, even though he was not on the ballot. He has possibly cost the GOP the Senate for the second time in as many election cycles. The only Trump-endorsed Georgia statewide Republican primary winner was the only loser. His acolytes lost a series of winnable House races.
But Gov. Ron DeSantis won a battleground state where he had governed as a conservative by a margin that looked more like Ronald Reagan vs. Walter Mondale than George W. Bush vs. Al Gore.
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