Palm Beach, Fla. CNN —
Donald Trump wanted to catapult himself into a third presidential campaign with a wave of Republican midterm gains behind him. Instead, he emerges from Tuesday’s bewildering election night facing questions about his political future and with momentum behind Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, potentially his main potential nemesis in a 2024 primary.
With key races still too early to call in Arizona and Nevada, and with Georgia headed for a Senate runoff, Trump entered Wednesday with few victories to promote and the possibility that they could soon be eclipsed by more losses.
His chosen candidates for open Senate seats in Ohio and North Carolina prevailed, as did Republican incumbent Sen. Ron Johnson in Wisconsin. But he lost a critical Senate race in Pennsylvania, where Mehmet Oz, whom he supported in the primary despite widespread concerns about his eligibility, was defeated by Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman. In Michigan, Trump’s nominee in the gubernatorial race failed to unseat Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. And while Republicans still appear to be on track to capture a House majority, it’s likely to be much slimmer than initially thought.
“As powerful as Trump is in the Republican Party, we learned that he can’t anoint anybody a winner. You still need candidates who have the fundamentals,” said Bryan Lanza, a longtime Trump adviser.
Others were more blunt in their assessment of Tuesday’s known results.
Rep. Troy Nehls, a Texas Republican who won re-election and received Trump’s endorsement, appeared to call the former president a drag on other Republican candidates in a radio interview Wednesday.
“There are a lot of negative attitudes about Trump,” Nehls said. In a statement to CNN after this story was published, the congressman said he continues to support Trump and will “support him as the 47th president.”
Early Wednesday morning, a current Trump adviser, who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation, admitted that Trump “is in a tough spot going out tonight.”
“Two narratives will take hold next week and neither will be easy to dispel,” the adviser said.
Well aware of his unprecedented participation in the Republican primaries earlier this year, this adviser and other Trump allies said they expect the former president to be guilty of elevating flawed candidates in some of the party’s biggest contests, particularly Oz, a daytime talk show host who had barely resided in Pennsylvania before launching his Senate campaign there.
Trump’s disappointment was palpable in the gilded ballroom of his Mar-a-Lago estate, where he gathered with dozens of aides, allies and donors to watch the returns Tuesday evening. When he returned to the party in the middle of the night after a private dinner, his mood had visibly changed.
“Interesting cake,” he called to reporters before taking the stage for brief, unenthusiastic remarks.
As the crowd thinned, Trump sat at a table in front of a television tuned to Fox News with only a handful of advisers. Meanwhile, several guests whose names appeared on a VIP list that a Trump adviser circulated to reporters were nowhere to be found, including some who apparently decided to skip the event, appearing as TV pundits during all night from studios elsewhere in the country.
The end result was the exact scenario Trump’s advisers had hoped to avoid: an election in which his top recruits flopped or flopped and his main Republican challenger rocketed to new stardom.
Sources familiar with the matter said Trump left the party at the end of the night in a sour mood and resentful of the attention on DeSantis, who won re-election by a monster margin and became the first Republican governor to carry Miami-Dade County. a densely populated and diverse area, for the first time in two decades. Just hours before the Florida governor’s victory, Trump had dismissed DeSantis in comments to reporters aboard his 757 plane, threatening to release unflattering information about him and suggesting he might have been more “kind” to Trump’s endorsement in his 2018 bid for the governor’s mansion.
“It wasn’t a great night for Trump and it makes 2024 more competitive,” one Republican operative said.
As of Wednesday morning, Trump was in contact with allies in early 2024 as he worked to develop a message that could carry him forward, according to two people briefed on those conversations. In Iowa, Trump plans to promote Republican Brenna Bird’s defeat of incumbent Democratic Attorney General Tom Miller, despite not endorsing Bird until Nov. 5, three days before her election.
As he works to map out his next steps, one of the biggest questions he faces is how to approach DeSantis, the sources said.
Before his resounding success Tuesday, the Florida governor “was already having a moment, but the spotlight just quadrupled in intensity,” a Trump adviser said.
“We have to figure out how to get him back before next Tuesday,” the Trump adviser added, referring to Trump’s “big announcement” on Nov. 15, when he is expected to formally declare his third campaign by the whites house DeSantis’ strength was reflected in CNN exit polls on Tuesday, which showed the Republican governor overtaking President Joe Biden’s 2020 margin of victory among Latino voters in Florida and holding a small lead among independents, which Biden carried in the state by 11 points two years ago. .
Both data points could prove compelling in the Republican primary between DeSantis and Trump, who made inroads with black and Hispanic voters in some 2020 states, but not to the degree of the Florida Republican.
Two people close to the former president said he had backed himself into a corner by publicly setting a date for his expected campaign announcement before the results of the midterm elections were known, which he did at a campaign rally of Ohio on the eve of the election to compromise with allies that he did not want him to use the event as a launching pad for his campaign.
“He has to [announce],” said a source close to Trump, adding that it is too late for him to back down. “It would be embarrassing.”
Another Trump ally noted that it would be “less embarrassing to fall behind than to go out in a heap of silence.”
Some in Trump’s circle hoped a runoff in Georgia could help the former president delay the announcement and save face.
Trump adviser Jason Miller said Herschel Walker, who will face Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock in a runoff, CNN projected Wednesday, should be the priority.
“I’m going to advise him to hold off until after the Georgia runoff, assuming that’s where the race is still trending,” Miller said.
Others hope the advice will fall on deaf ears. One source noted that Trump has so far resisted arguments that he should delay his announcement, and as of Wednesday morning it was still unclear to some of the former president’s closest aides how he would manage his ambitions by 2024. Would he proceed defiantly, launching a campaign without considering the potential obstacles ahead, or entertain a rare recalculation?
“I could see him claiming that Republicans didn’t turn out in droves because he wasn’t on the ballot and blaming everyone but himself,” one of his aides said.
For Trump, Tuesday’s underwhelming results followed months of intense engagement in a midterm cycle that marked a marked departure from the post-presidential activities of his modern predecessors. As early as last summer, he began working to recruit candidates for key Senate contests that would advance his false claims about the 2020 election.
“He wanted to be seen as a legendary kingmaker,” said one former Trump campaign official.
This spring, Trump was meddling directly in contested primaries, supporting candidates he considered more MAGA, criticizing his opponents in statements and Social Truth posts, and clearly ignoring the advice of some of his advisers to stay on the sidelines until in the general elections. it began. Trump often argued that his participation would eventually pay dividends, not only by bringing majorities in both houses of Congress, but by ensuring that elected officials loyal to him, not the party, were installed in Washington and in key mansions of the governor
In many cases, even candidates Trump did not endorse emblazoned their campaign websites with his image or catchphrases such as “America First” or “MAGA fighter.” Throughout the cycle, GOP candidates regularly went to Mar-a-Lago to seek his support. Others poured thousands of dollars into hosting fundraising events at the waterfront property, hoping the former president would take note of their devotion and reward them with an endorsement.
Trump ended the cycle by spending more than $16 million through his MAGA Inc. super PAC. in recent weeks to boost many of his hand-picked candidates and link his top Democratic targets to Biden, who has faced declining popularity in his first two years. in office. Hours before results began coming in on Tuesday, Trump’s team circulated a memo touting his “unprecedented success in 2022” that quantified his campaign appearances and support for Republican candidates.
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