- A Trump-DeSantis match-up in 2024 appears even more likely following the midterms.
- After the GOP underperformed, some Republicans are saying it’s time to move on from Trump.
- Meanwhile, DeSantis has become a GOP star now more popular than ever.
As the anticipated “red wave” failed to fully materialized on Tuesday, one Republican in Florida was having an exceptionally good night.
Gov. Ron DeSantis handily won reelection in a state that has long been considered a swing state, defeating Democrat Charlie Crist with a roughly 20-point lead as of Wednesday. By comparison, DeSantis in 2018 won the governorship by less than a percentage point, in a state that twice voted for former President Barack Obama.
DeSantis’ dominating performance is all the more noteworthy compared to the underwhelming results delivered by Republicans elsewhere, including some of former President Donald Trump’s most ardent supporters and endorsees. The drastic difference has already led Republicans to turn to DeSantis for 2024 hopes, a prospect that now seems all the more likely.
“Certainly DeSantis’s overwhelming victory just puts more wind in his sails,” Kevin Kosar, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who studies Congress and US politics, told Insider. “The failure of various Trump pick candidates is a blow against him.”
As of Wednesday evening, it was still unclear which party would win majorities in either chamber of Congress. But one of the biggest blows to the GOP, and Trump, came in Pennsylvania, where Lt. Gov. John Fetterman beat Dr. Mehmet Oz for US Senate, flipping the seat from red to blue. Trump endorsed the celebrity doctor in May, much to the dismay and confusion of some on the right.
Three crucial Senate seats are still up in the air, with Georgia headed to a January runoff between Sen. Raphael Warnock and Trump-backed Herschel Walker. But in Nevada and Arizona, which had not been called as of Wednesday evening, the Democratic candidates appeared to be leading over Trump’s picks.
Even in some cases where Trump endorsees won, they underperformed. Former Trump critic JD Vance won a Senate seat in Ohio after campaigning on an unapologetically Trumpian platform, but by a much smaller margin than Gov. Mike DeWine won. While DeWine was eventually endorsed by Trump, he has notably rejected false claims about the 2020 election being stolen and has left some distance between himself and the former president.
Trump-endorsed candidates for governor lost in Pennsylvania and New York, while Arizona’s race is still up in the air but much closer than many anticipated. Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert, one of Trump’s most loyal supporters in Congress, was neck and neck with her Democratic challenger on Wednesday evening in a race that few expected to be this competitive.
Though Republicans still appeared poised to win the House, the GOP has scrambled to explain their underperformance in spite of raging inflation, President Joe Biden’s low approval ratings, and the fact that the president’s party in recent history typically gets crushed in the midterms.
Republican analysts and commentators on Wednesday were already blaming Trump.
“How could you look at these results tonight and conclude Trump has any chance of winning a national election in 2024?” Scott Jennings, a conservative analyst who has advised Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, told Insider earlier Wednesday.
Some were already propping up DeSantis as the best choice for the 2024 Republican presidential nominee. Even Biden egged on a potential Trump-DeSantis match-up.
“Donald Trump was not the kiss of death across the country, but neither did he hold the magic beans,” Grant Reeher, a political science professor at Syracuse University, said in an email to Insider. “If a more verbally disciplined, even-keeled, prominent figure emerges, who could tap the middle and working-class appeal that Trump sparked, the Republicans might have something they can ride into 2024. Paging Ron DeSantis?”
Trump seems well aware of this. In addition to mocking DeSantis three days before the midterms, Trump, instead of celebrating the growing Republican base in Florida, went after the governor with a direct comparison on Wednesday.
“Now that the election in Florida is over, and everything went quite well, shouldn’t it be said that in 2020, I got 1.1 million more votes in Florida than Ron D got this year,” Trump said in a Truth Social post, although voter turnout is typically much higher in presidential elections than midterms.
“Just asking?” he added.
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