How the US elections cast new doubts on the image of the winner that Trump wants to project

donald trump he built his political career in the United States projecting an aura of a born winner.

“I keep complaining until I win,” he said after announcing his 2015 Republican presidential bid.

LOOK: Elections in the US: 3 states define the tight fight between Republicans and Democrats for crucial control of the Senate

“We are going to win so much that you are going to get sick of winning”, he promised in 2016, the year of his great electoral victory that took him to the White House against many odds.

And, despite having lost his reelection in 2020, Trump tried to maintain an image of invincibility before his followers: he refuses to this day to accept that result and falsely insists that he won.

But Tuesday’s midterm elections in the US to decide control of Congress and several state governors have cast new, perhaps final, doubts about Trump’s ability to win.

Although no ballot paper included his name, Trump endorsed different candidates and cast himself as the star of the election, suggesting he would announce his new 2024 presidential bid a week after what he anticipated would be a huge wave of Republican victories.

However, now that that “red tide” is conspicuous by its absence and it is still uncertain which party will control Congress, some experts believe that Trump may have backfired.

“This weakens his position and influence within the Republican Party,” Alan Abramowitz, a political scientist at Emory University who has written books on US elections, tells BBC Mundo.

There are a couple of reasons for this.

“A Pivot Point”

For one thing, while several Trump-backed Republicans triumphed, others suffered heavy defeats.

Among the former is JD Vance, the best-selling writer once critical of Trump who was elected senator from Ohio after receiving support from the former president in a state where he won comfortably in the last two elections.

John Fetterman has handed Democrats a key win for the Senate. (GETTY IMAGES).

Among the losers is Mehmet Oz, a Trump-backed TV doctor defeated in his Senate race by Democrat John Fetterman, who managed to snatch a valuable Republican upper house seat from Pennsylvania despite suffering a stroke on the campaign trail.

In that same state, Democrat Josh Shapiro defeated Doug Mastriano, a denier of the 2020 election results who was also supported by the former president.

Instead, at least 95 Republican deniers were elected to the positions of representative, senator or governor on Tuesday, while 28 were defeated, according to a BBC analysis.

Republicans seemed on track Wednesday afternoon to win at least the 218 seats they need to regain a majority in the House of Representatives.

But the fact that that is still pending confirmation, or that control of the Senate remains uncertain amid the highest rise in US inflation. in decades and with the low popularity of President Joe Biden, unleashed a search for those responsible in Republican ranks.

And some critics of Trump take direct aim at him.

Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger tweeted Wednesday that the GOP “should expel the Trump family from his future lexicon”.

GettyImages.

“This is really a pivot point for the Republican Party,” Geoff Duncan, the Republican lieutenant governor of Georgia, said on CNN on Wednesday.

“It’s a time when Donald Trump is definitely in the rearview mirror and It’s time to move on with the party“.

Duncan recalled reservations expressed before the election by Senate Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell about the “quality” of Trump-endorsed candidates.

It is precisely in Georgia where the majority of the Senate could be defined in a second round in December between Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker, a former football player supported by Trump.

Herschel Walker, a former football player endorsed by Trump, is fighting for a key Republican seat in the Senate. (GETTY IMAGES).

Walker campaigned on social conservative agenda issues such as opposition to abortion, but in recent weeks it has come to light that he allegedly paid for an ex-girlfriend of his to have an abortion.

Abramowitz notes that the fact that Trump-backed candidates in key states lost or underperformed “raises questions about the effect their turnout is having on the party.”

“They blame me”

Trump himself acknowledged this Wednesday on his Truth Social platform that “in a way, yesterday’s elections were somewhat disappointing.”

But he added that from his point of view “it was a very big victory: 219 WINS and 16 Losses overall.”

“Who has done better than this?” he asked.

It is common for the president’s party to be punished in mid-term elections in the US.

But Democrats have shown more strength than many anticipated, rallying around issues like abortion rights, and may retain control of the Senate with Vice President Kamala Harris’ tiebreaking vote.

Trump predicted Tuesday night that Republicans would win Congress, but said he would be personally blamed if anything different happened.

How much has the image of invincibility that Trump cultivated changed? (REUTERS).

“What usually happens is that when they do well they don’t give me any credit, and if they do badly they blame me for everything,” he told the conservative network NewsNation.

Another reason the election could have been a setback for Trump is that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis cemented himself as a conservative rising star by being re-elected by a wide margin.

In fact, the 44-year-old Republican who some call “Trump 2.0” is considered one of Tuesday’s big winners, reinforcing his image as a potential Republican presidential candidate in 2024.

“DeFUTURO”, headlined the conservative newspaper on its front page this Wednesday The New York Posta pun on the last name of DeSantis, who appears in a photo celebrating with his family.

Trump seems to dislike the idea of ​​this governor running for the Republican nomination for the White House.

Ron DeSantis: The Republican Governor of Florida was one of the big winners of the election. (GETTY IMAGES).

“If he shows up, he could get very hurt,” the former president told the network. foxnews on Tuesday. And she warned that it might reveal “things about him that won’t be very flattering.”

In dialogue with the BBC, Republican pollster and strategist Patrick Ruffini describes Trump as a “wounded animal” when comparing him to DeSantis’ electoral moment.

With Trump being president, Republicans lost control of the House of Representatives in the 2018 midterm elections.

If they regain that majority now as seems likely, they may end the investigation into the violent invasion of Trump supporters on Capitol Hill in January 2021.

Since leaving power, the former president has been subjected to other investigations for different reasons, from his handling of classified documents to business practices.

Trump may point to those cases as efforts to stop his potential run for the White House. And it is likely that his followers will believe him again.

The investigation into the invasion of the Capitol in January 2021 could end in the House of Representatives if the Republicans take control of it. (GETTY IMAGES).

The former president has already shown on other occasions that he is a difficult politician to beat at the polls. With a mobilized fan base like his, he would be back by 2024.

But since he entered politics, many have seen his relationship with Republicans as transactional: the party supported him despite all his controversies and he provided the winning votes to push the conservative agenda.

Perhaps this has started to change since Tuesday.

Source: Elcomercio