Trump Has 3 Choices: Good, Bad, & Ugly For The Republican Party

Former President Trump insists that while Tuesday’s midterms weren’t a total triumph for Republicans, they were still a “very big victory.”

The reality is that the ‘red wave’ – which had been positioned in the press as a referendum on Trumpism, failed to materialize in what many are saying was a huge blow to the former President’s political momentum (and shares in Truth Social’s spac, DWAC). 

Others have suggested Tuesday’s results are an indication that the party may be ready to pivot towards Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in 2024, should he choose to run. 

Trump says he’s still going to make a “very big announcement” on November 15 at Mar-a-Lago, where many expect him to formally announce his 2024 White House bid.

“While in certain ways yesterday’s election was somewhat disappointing, from my personal standpoint it was a very big victory—219 WINS and 16 Losses in the General—Who has ever done better than that?” Trump wrote on Truth social Wednesday..

“Almost all of the people I endorsed WON, yet if you read the story from two Trump hating writers (who only do as they are told!), you would not even recognize the truth. They truly are, THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!!!,” he wrote of the NY Times.

That said, while Trump endorsed more than 200 candidates for midterms, many of them were running in ‘safe’ seats where a GOP candidate was unlikely to lose.

Other Republicans aren’t so bullish on what happened Tuesday.

Just- all the chatter on my conservative and GOP channels – is rage at Trump like I’ve never seen. “The one guy he attacked before Election Day was DeSantis- the clear winner, meanwhile, all his guys are shitting the bed.”

— Michael Brendan Dougherty (@michaelbd) November 9, 2022

The NY Post went full DeSantis following Tuesday’s results:

According to Axios, some of Trump’s top advisers want him to delay his ‘big announcement’ until after the Georgia runoff election Dec. 6, though “Trump has made clear he has no intention of listening to that advice, at least for now.”

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich says he suspects Trump is rethinking 2024, saying on Wednesday that Trump is likely “reappraising” a run.

“I mean, just in my own emails today, the number of people who want somebody other than Trump who have decided, literally overnight, that person is going to be DeSantis, he’s going to find it almost impossible to avoid running,” he said on Wednesday, adding “I think Trump’s got to look at the results and be troubled.“

“I can tell you, for me, this was not the result I expected. I thought we’d win a lot more seats.”

And so, as Victor Davis Hanson explains, Trump has three choices; good (step away having ‘paved the way for a new republican agenda’), bad (stay in the running and shift attention from himself to agenda – which is hard because he is divisive for many), and ugly (be himself and run as himself being bigger than the party and seeking veangance for 2020) in 2024…