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Journalism of Courage
The midterm elections in the United States were widely expected to be Donald Trump’s moment, even though he was himself not on the ballot. International affairs expert Amitabh Mattoo wrote in The Indian Express that the results could “signal the robust return of Trump and Trumpism in all its Frankenstein-like manifestations”. As many pollsters predicted a “red wave” across the country, that’s the assessment most analysts put their money on.
It did not quite turn out that way. At an election night gathering in Mar-a-Lago, Trump spoke far less than he might have expected to, and restricted his description of the results to one word: “interesting”. Far from being a personal triumph, the results could, in fact, turn out to be a personal setback for the former president and his potential bid for the White House in 2024.
Trump had made this election about himself. He held at least 30 in-person rallies and double that number of tele-rallies and robocalls, showed up at about 50 fundraisers, and endorsed some 300 candidates — a level of involvement in party politics by a former president not seen in more than a century, American media reports pointed out. The message he wished to send was clear: he was the undisputed leader of the Republican Party and, as he said in an interview posted on November 8, “I think if they win, I should get all the credit”.
As it turned out, candidates backed by Trump lost or were trailing in several key states.
*In Pennsylvania, Trump’s handpicked Senate candidate Dr Mehmet Oz was defeated by the Democrat John Fetterman, who flipped a Senate seat in what was one of the most high-profile contests of the election.
* Also in Pennsylvania, Democrat Josh Shapiro won the Governor’s race against Republican Doug Mastriano.
* In Michigan, Trump’s pick for Governor, Tudor Dixon, failed to unseat Democrat Gretchen Whitmer.
* Also in Michigan, incumbent Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson defeated Republican Kristina Karamo, one of the more vociferous proponents of the theory that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen” from Trump.
* In Arizona, Kari Lake and Blake Masters, Trump-backed candidates for Governor and Senate respectively, were trailing in tight races.
* In Georgia, the former football player Herschel Walker, the candidate in which Trump has perhaps been the most invested personally, was trailing Democrat Raphael Warnock in a tight Senate race that appeared set to go into a runoff election.
* In Ohio, J D Vance won the Senate race against Democrat Tim Ryan but, as media reports noted, Trump was not among the many people he thanked after the victory.
In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis was re-elected with a margin not seen in two decades. Notably, DeSantis was his own candidate, refusing to seek Trump’s backing, which riled the former president enough to start referring to the Governor by a mocking nickname.
Trump does not like DeSantis in large part because they are seen as the two top contenders for the Republican nomination for president. Neither man has formally announced his bid yet, but their ambitions are well known. At Mar-a-Lago on election night, Trump refused to mention DeSantis’s victory or to congratulate him.
