Republican finger-pointing begins as control of Congress still in the air
Some Republicans blamed former President Donald Trump for endorsing poor candidates.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2022-e ... -rcna56366
As the political world settled in for a long wait to know who will control Congress, Republicans began finger-pointing about whether former President Donald Trump was to blame for their lackluster election night.
Republicans could still take control of both the House and Senate, but their predictions of a massive red wave sweeping the country fell short as some major Trump-backed candidates like Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania were defeated while key races in Arizona, and Nevada were still too close to call on Wednesday.
The Georgia Senate race is headed to a December runoff, NBC News projects, making it increasingly likely control of the upper chamber won't be decided until then.
"Now that it’s obvious the @gop should expel the Trump family from its future lexicon," Trump critic and Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger tweeted Wednesday morning.
Georgia’s Republican Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan told CNN that the rejection of so many of Trump's candidates shows that “this is a time that Donald Trump is no doubt in the rearview mirror, and it’s time to move on with the party, it’s time to move on with candidate quality.”
"I think it sends a message to the country, along with some other states, that this is truly a pivot point for the Republican party," he said.
Duncan made the comments after his state's Republican governor and secretary of state — who Trump had campaigned against during the primary for not backing his bid to overturn election results in 2020 - both won re-election by comfortable margins. Trump's handpicked Senate candidate Herschel Walker, meanwhile, was trailing incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock in a race that is now headed for a Dec. 6 runoff.
But NBC News projects Duncan, who did not seek re-election, is being succeeded by Burt Jones, a Trump-endorsed state senator who acted as a fake elector in Georgia after the 2020 election.
Other Trump-picked candidates had big nights as well, including author J.D. Vance, who defeated Democrat Tim Ryan in the Ohio Senate race Tuesday night.
Trump hosted an election night party at his Mar-a-Lago estate that was expected to be an opportunity for him to take credit for many of his endorsed candidates scoring big victories. Instead, Trump gave a very short, lackluster speech and then quietly watched the returns while eating dinner with a small group of close aides.
In an interview with NewsNation on Tuesday, Trump said he was only responsible for the party's successes, not its failures.
"I think if they win I should get all the credit, and If they lose, I should not be blamed at all, ok? But it will probably be just the opposite. When they win … I’ll probably be given very little credit, even though in many cases I told people to run and they ran and they turned out to very good candidates," he said.
"If they do badly they’ll blame everything on me.”
On social media, Trump maintained the election had been a huge success for him.
“174 wins and 9 losses, A GREAT EVENING, and the Fake News Media, together with their partner in crime, the Democrats, are doing everything possible to play it down. Amazing job by some really fantastic candidates!” he wrote on Truth Social.
While several Republican candidates who denied or questioned the results of the 2020 election lost their races for positions that oversee, defend and certify elections in battleground states, one key Trump ally managed to hold on to his job Wednesday — NBC News projects Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., defeated Democrat Mandela Barnes in a close race.
Another Trump ally, Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Col., was trailing Democrat Adam Frisch by a small margin Wednesday morning.
A top Democratic congressman was ousted as well. Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, the chairman of the House Democrats’ campaign arm, conceded defeat to state Assemblyman Mike Lawler in New York.
Will Hurd, a former Republican congressman from Texas, tweeted of the election results, "It’s the candidates, stupid."
"Americans have made it clear that candidates matter. Character matters. The way we treat those with whom we disagree matters," Hurd wrote.
"We need strong leaders with integrity that can tackle the challenges of the future and lift people up. We have some that won big last night, but we need a helluva lot more if we want to win moving forward."
Former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton credited the her party's success in fending off a red wave to women who were motivated by the U.S. Supreme Court’s reversal of the Roe v. Wade ruling that protected abortion rights nationwide.
“It turns out women enjoy having human rights, and we vote,” she tweeted Wednesday morning.
PP