Following last week’s Midterm elections, Republicans will remain in the minority in the U.S. Senate, while the GOP is poised to control a razor-thin, but as of yet still undecided, majority in the House.
The GOP’s massive underperformance compared to expectations, have fingers of blame pointing in many directions, including at party leaders Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY).
Now the GOP Minority Leaders are seething over this Republican’s open revolt in the GOP leadership contest.
In an unforeseen turn of events on election night last Tuesday, the “Red Wave” seems to have largely only washed ashore in deep blue New York and the increasingly red Florida.
For the rest of the country, it was a standard election – red states mostly elected Republicans and by wide margins, blue states mostly elected Democrats and by wide margins, and races in the purple states were mostly razor thin.
The disappointing thing for the GOP is Democrats have edged out victories in the majority of those razor-slim races.
It’s a very abnormal result for a party controlling the Presidency, the House and the Senate to go into a Midterm with an unpopular President, three-quarters of voters believing the country is on the wrong track, a bad economy and surging crime rates to escape getting demolished in a Midterm.
But that’s exactly what happened for Democrats in the 2022 Midterms.
Some are blaming the Supreme Court, others are blaming Donald Trump and his MAGA movement, and still others are pointing to establishment Republicans, specifically GOP leadership.
Increasingly that blame is centering on House and Senate GOP leaders – House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).
Top House Freedom Caucus Republican says GOP needs leadership more like DeSantis’ “unapologetic” example.
Texas Republican Rep. Chip Roy, a prominent member of a group of the most conservative House members known as the House Freedom Caucus, believes McCarthy and McConnell set the Party up to fail in the Midterms.
“We have to fight for something,” wrote Texas Republican Rep. Chip Roy in an op-ed for the Washington Examiner. “Doing so requires a willingness to take on real political risk to fight for the American people. It requires taking the kind of political risk Gov. Ron DeSantis has unapologetically taken in Florida — a key to why he crushed his Democratic competition.”
Roy wants to see the GOP move away from McCarthy and McConnell’s play-it-safe approach and adopt the DeSantis model.
“We, congressional Republicans, have taken no such political risk thus far,” Roy wrote. “Our leadership has not demonstrated the willingness to use all the tools at our disposal to check a radical White House and fight for the American people suffering from its policies.”
Back in 2018, DeSantis barely escaped election night as a winner.
Only about 32,500 votes – or 0.4-points – separated DeSantis from his radical-leftist Democrat opponent, Andrew Gillum – who has since been indicted on federal crimes.
Since then, DeSantis has governed to the right of perhaps every other governor in the country.
Doing so in a purple state would typically have conventional political wisdom suggesting DeSantis would be vulnerable in his re-election bid.
Democrats put up, possibly, their biggest name in the state to challenge DeSantis, in former governor, Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-independent-turned-Democrat Charlie Crist.
However, what was once considered a potential Democrat pickup, the race turned out to be a landslide.
DeSantis destroyed Crist by 19.5-points – more than 1.5-million votes – quite the turnaround from 2018.
And he did so while being enemy number one – or at least 1B – from Big Media.
DeSantis even had the three hosts of the Oscars mocking him on national television.
And unlike candidates elsewhere, DeSantis had coattails.
Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) was supposed to be in a competitive re-election contest against Democrat Rep. Val Demings.
Instead, Rubio cruised to re-election by about 16.5-points.
Ron DeSantis achieved an incredibly rapid transition from purple state to one of the reddest states in the country in just four-short years – and he did so with conservative-populist governing.
If Republicans do take control of the U.S. House of Representatives, they largely have America’s Governor to thank.
Unlike establishment Republican Governors, DeSantis fought to get the best map possible for the GOP in redistricting.
Those fights, combined with DeSantis’ coattails led to four-house seats flipping red in the Sunshine State in 2022.
If current leads hold, that will Represent about half of the GOP House gains across the country.
