Originally posted by Dr. Strangelove
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2018 was a pretty standard first term midterm backlash IMHO. No matter who was President, you were going to see that.
2022 -- Trump endorsed some candidates in the primaries but didn't get involved much in the general. The Michigan catastrophe was not his fault at all. And some of the other candidates who lost were more or less sabotaged by the R establishment, who would rather lose than win with Trump. When out of state groups pour tens of millions of dollars into a Senate race and the D outspends the R five to one, it's hard to blame a 2% loss on Trump.
You also have to take into account what the Rs would look like without Trump. Without Trump, they are most likely, still the party mostly of supply side economics and small government -- two ideals that have next to zero mass appeal today. And before Trump came along, the Rs did nothing to lend themselves credibility in the "small government" department, so that's out the window now. As best i can tell, the R base doesn't even care about tax cuts these days. Small government Libertarianism is dead and without Trump, that's probably where the Rs would be right now.
That and being pro-foreign wars. Hooray.
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