So, what happened?
What happened is that in many districts and states all over the country, Republicans picked bad candidates. Believing that the fundamentals were all that was necessary to sweep them to victory, Republican leadership failed to intervene in these primaries to the extent necessary to ensure durable general election candidates. They stood aside largely out of fear of former President Donald Trump; Trump himself personally intervened in a variety of cases in the primaries, endorsing candidates almost solely on the basis of whether they were sufficiently sycophantic regarding the election of 2020.
Those candidates then lost.
And then Trump ripped them. Take, for example, Don Bolduc in New Hampshire. New Hampshire is a toss-up state; late polls suggested that Bolduc, despite his myriad oddities and strong support for Trump’s 2020 election fraud claims, might win the race. Instead, he lost by double digits. And Trump promptly took to Truth Social to let the world know that Bolduc deserved it: “Don Bolduc was a very nice guy, but he lost tonight when he disavowed, after his big primary win, his longstanding stance on Election Fraud in the 2020 Presidential Primary. Had he stayed strong and true, he would have own easily. Lessons Learned!!!” He also took the time to issue a statement
celebrating a Democrat winning the Colorado Senate seat, ripping Republican Joe O’Dea, who had refused to countenance Trump’s election 2020 obsession: “Joe O’Dea lost BIG! MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
The Republican Party had one job in the 2022 election cycle: to provide some semblance of responsible leadership. Where they didn’t, they lost.
And where they did, they won.
pjmedia.com