Midterms Were ‘Victory for Team Normal’
Republicans increasingly begin to see need to move on from Donald Trump
A growing number, and range, of Republicans are advocating that their abysmally bad results from last week's midterm elections are directly related to the extremism and conspiracy theories expounded by Donald Trump.
And that Republican candidates won't start winning again, en masse, until they ditch Trump and re-embrace policies more in line with more mainstream Americans.
Despite much talk about a so-called “red wave,” as a result of last Tuesday's voting, Democrats will hold the majority in the US Senate (with one election — in Georgia — still to be decided by run-off next month).
And, at this writing, it remains — astoundingly — unknown which party will hold the US House of Representatives next year after even most Democrats assumed Republicans would take over the chamber.
“I was surprised by the results. Don’t get me wrong. I thought there was going to be a red wave. A lot of us did,” said New Hampshire Gov Chris Sununu, re-elected last week by governing as a more-pragmatic Republican. “There have been recent elections where folks said we want a moderate candidate who will be successful at getting things done. But it isn’t about rhetoric or party policy. You have got to be able to deliver the results and that’s what people will vote into.”
Outgoing Rep Liz Cheney, of Wyoming, who lost her election earlier this year to a fellow Republican who embraces Trump, put her party's losses last week in even more stark terms.
“I think about the extent to which it was a victory for ‘team normal,’” said Cheney, who became unpopular among many other Republicans for her willingness to stand up against Trump and his election denialism. “I think that you saw many candidates who were reflecting sort of the election denialism of President Trump rejected.
“People talk about Donald Trump these days as the biggest loser, and I think that’s true, if you look at the record from 2018 from 2020, from the special election in 2021, from 2022, I think that is an important point. I also think though that as a party, we need to be clear that we will not be, we should not be embracing him,” the congresswoman added in a recent on-camera appearance on MSNBC.
Rep-elect Mike Lawler, of New York, said that he was able to defeat a member of the Democratic leadership by steering clear of either election denialism or the violent insurrection at the US Capitol Building on January 6, last year.
“I’ve said from the very beginning Joe Biden won the election and January 6 was wrong, period. But I didn’t equivocate on that. The bottom line here is this: As we move forward, I think it’s incumbent upon every elected official to cut the crap and focus on how we address the challenges that we are facing as a nation,” he said. “And they are real.
“And the one party rule just does not work. That was a big part of why I won. We need to have a balanced approach on all sides. I think we need to be focused on how we address these challenges as a country together,” Lawler added. “The bottom line for me, and why I have been successful in politics is because I have been able to reach across the aisle, I am among the most bipartisan voting records in the state legislature, and that is what I am going to do as a member of Congress. I am not interested in re-litigating the past.”
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