‘Candidate quality’ and fury over Roe leads to mixed results for Trump-endorsed candidates

A number of Donald Trump’s allies were among the early winners Tuesday evening as Republicans saw impressive showings in Florida, but it was clear as the evening progressed that the GOP was not going to see the red “tsunami” it was hoping would materialise.

The ex-president’s new home state in particular emerged as a bastion of Republican strength as Senator Marco Rubio easily defeated his well-funded challenger, Val Demings, and Governor Ron DeSantis defeated the state’s former governor, Charlie Crist.

Matt Gaetz, a far-right congressman who has faced an investigation by the Justice Department for the alleged sex trafficking of a minor, also won reelection in the state. Mr Gaetz has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and has not been charged with a crime.

It was also a night for one of Donald Trump’s oldest allies, former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, in Arkansas. Her first foray into elected office, Ms Huckabee Sanders will now be the state’s next governor, following in her father’s footsteps. In another governor’s race, Kirsti Noem won reelection in South Dakota, an expected victory in another red bastion.

Elsewhere, Trump-backed candidates notched similar early wins. Ted Budd won a victory over Cheri Beasley in North Carolina’s Senate race while Katie Britt, running in Alabama, won her race promptly as polls closed at 8pm. In Ohio, Trump-backed JD Vance won a victory over Tim Ryan, a congressman, for the state’s open Senate seat.

Another sort-of victory for Mr Trump came in Georgia, where Brian Kemp won reelection against Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams. Mr Kemp had the president’s endorsement, but only after defeating a Trump-backed primary challenger and despite bucking Mr Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election.

Other Republicans backed by Mr Trump in the House fared well in deep-red districts, like Andrew Clyde and Jim Banks, as well as controversial firebrand Marjorie Taylor Greene. But the “red wave” failed to materialise in several key House districts outside of Florida, where the GOP’s early victories were concentrated. Abigail Spanberger won reelection in Virginia, as did Seth Magaziner in Rhode Island. Both districts were viewed by the GOP as potential pickups tonight.

When it came to other contested races, the ex-president suffered even further key defeats on Tuesday that marred his endorsement victory record and proved that his backing had come, at least in some cases, despite or perhaps at the expense of proper vetting procedures. The most obvious examples were the campaigns of Dr Mehmet Oz, who trailed John Fetterman in the most-watched Senate race of the night just before 1am despite continued concerns about Mr Fetterman’s health, as well as the poor showing of Blake Masters in Arizona. Mr Masters resoundingly trailed incumbent Senator Mark Kelly with 50 per cent of the vote in, and as of yet that race has yet to look anywhere close to as competitive as polling would have had observers believe. Multiple TV networks projected Mr Fetterman would defeat Dr Oz.

Another embarassing showing came in Georgia, where Herschel Walker trailed Raphael Warnock, the incumbent Democrat, by a slim margin and looked poised to trigger a runoff. That could be advantageous for Mr Warnock, given that Mr Walker will not have other, more popular GOP candidates driving Republican voters to the polls in such a future contest.

And in three gubernatorial races, Trump-backed candidates trailed their opponents shortly after midnight. In Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro was declared the winner over 2020 election conspiracist Doug Mastriano; in Michigan, election denier Tudor Dixon was defeated by incumbent Gov Gretchen Whitmer, and in Arizona Democrat Katie Hobbs looked poised for a shockingly strong showing against Kari Lake, who has made a name for herself by espousing Mr Trump’s false claims of fraud while belittling and fighting with reporters on the campaign trail.

In Nevada, Republican Adam Laxalt remained within striking distance of the incumbent, Catherine Cortez Masto, late into the night. But it was clear as more and more votes came in across the rest of the country that the “red tsunami” which Mr Trump’s allies had confidently predicted for weeks — even as recently as Tuesday morning — was nowhere to be found. Worse, their Democratic enemies remained in a serious position to retain control over both chambers of Congress after midnight Wednesday morning, baffling some of the most vocal DC pundits.

Senator Lindsey Graham was the first to offer his flat dismay: “Definitely not a Republican wave, that’s for darn sure,” he said to NBC News.

And therein lies the problem. The night was anything but a decisive victory for the Trump wing of the GOP, or even the GOP altogether. Such a performance at a time of historic inflation — and in a year when the president’s party traditionally does poorly, no less — raises pointed questions about what, or who, is responsible for the GOP’s underwhelming night. And reporters in Washington were noting that anonymous GOP sources were already aiming fire at the party’s de facto leader as well as his top man in the House, Kevin McCarthy, before races in many states had even concluded.

Mr McCarthy himself projected confidence at a House GOP campaign event in Washington, vowing that the GOP would have won decisive control of his chamber before the night was over. But the reality of the situation appeared unclear, with the chance of a GOP majority getting slimmer with each passing Democratic victory.

The questions now turn to 2024. Many Republicans will have no choice but to question after tonight whether Donald Trump still has the brand to win a national election, given the party’s agonising defeat in Pennsylvania and likely defeats in Arizona as well. Mr Trump’s likely 2024 opponents, meanwhile, will smell blood in the water and likely be emboldened as they consider taking the plunge and announcing bids for the presidency.

Mr Trump remains set to make a “major announcement” at his Mar-a-Lago abode in the coming days, which many expect to be the beginning of his 2024 campaign.