Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) endorsed Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) for Senate on Thursday, marking the Arizona Democrat's third endorsement from a House lawmaker as he vies for the seat currently held by Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.).
“Now, more than ever, our country needs elected officials who stand firm in the face of extremist Republicans who are threatening our legal and democratic institutions,” Goldman said in a statement. “As a Marine veteran who fought for our democracy overseas, Ruben understands the importance of the rule of law and, more importantly, that no one is above it —not even a former president.”
“Ruben is exactly the kind of elected official and candidate this moment demands and I am proud to endorse his campaign for United States Senate,” he added.
Sinema, who changed her party affiliation from Democrat to Independent in December, has not yet indicated if she will run for reelection next year. Her strong fundraising, however, suggests she may — the senator will report $9.9 million on hand following the most recent fundraising quarter, according to Politico.
Gallego is currently the only candidate in the race from any party.
Despite Sinema not yet entering the race, Gallego has gone on the offensive. In an interview with The Associated Press around his launch, the congressman said, “I’m better for this job than Kyrsten Sinema because I haven’t forgotten where I came from.”
“I think she clearly has forgotten where she came from. Instead of meeting with the people that need help, she meets with the people that are already powerful,” he added.
Gallego has picked up a number of endorsements since launching his bid, including from Reps. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and Seth Moulton (D-Mass.). He welcomed Goldman’s support on Thursday.
“I’m deeply honored to have earned the trust and support of my friend and colleague Dan Goldman,” Gallego said. “From leading the first impeachment inquiry against Trump to fighting for his constituents and our country in Congress, he is a champion and critical voice in our fights for democracy and justice.”
“I’m grateful to have his endorsement as we fight for the future of Arizona and our country,” he added.
Republicans say they have a good argument to make when it comes to this classic election question: Are you better off than you were four years ago?
Inflation is high, crime is up, stocks are flat or falling and immigration is out of control, GOP operatives say.
But Democrats — and even some Republicans — argue emphatically that Americans in 2024 will feel they are much better off than they were four years ago, when the country was suffering through the pandemic in the final year of Donald Trump’s presidency.
They say many Americans will remember the Trump presidency as among the darkest times in U.S. history and point out his four years in office included two impeachments — the second over a riot at the Capitol.
“Good luck with that argument,” said Democratic strategist Christy Setzer. “Personally, I'd think voters remember the Trump years as a time of constant anxiety, chaos and cruelty — hence voting him out.”
To be sure, the are you better off argument has some pluses for the GOP. But it may also be a double-edged sword, inviting call-backs to Trump even as he is the frontrunner for the GOP nomination next year.
“It's an invitation to run with Trump, whether or not he’s on the ticket,” said Republican strategist Susan Del Percio, who opposes the former president.
“It’s not a winning strategy for the Republican Party,” Del Percio added. “It’s looking backwards.”
Biden’s poll numbers have been underwater for months and a Gallup poll out this week showed that voters disapprove of his handling of foreign affairs, energy policy and the environment. When it comes to the key issue of the economy, only 32 percent of those surveyed approve of Biden’s performance.
A Real Clear Politics average of national polls this week showed just 28 percent believe the country is headed in the right direction.
Republicans see Biden’s weaknesses as an opportunity to draw a contrast. They say they have a good argument to make that the country was on more solid footing before Biden took office.
“In just over two years, Biden has tanked the economy, opened up our borders, embarrassed America on the world stage, worsened a supply chain crisis, and stoked the coals of division in our country,” said Republican National Committee spokesperson Emma Vaughn. “Americans are less safe, and their paychecks are worth less as a result of Biden’s reckless policies.
“Come 2024 voters will send him packing home to Delaware for good,” she said.
Even Republicans who are desperate to see Biden lose next year are hesitant to talk about the Trump era and urged party operatives not to make the comparison.
“I don’t think people really want to go back to the Trump years because they were so tumultuous,” said Republican strategist John Feehery.
He and other Republicans say there is a case to be made in pointing to Biden’s flaws — from inflation to the border — as a way to make the case that the country needs to move in a different direction.
“He’s out of touch, barely cognizant and that’s why his poll numbers are so low,” Feehery said. “Not only is he from the past but his ideas are from the past. They need to make that connection to his view of the world.”
One Republican strategist said the comparison between Biden and Trump is a good one to make “because at the end of the day, the biggest issue will be the rising cost of groceries and the inability to pay soaring bills.”
“Even if things seemed not so great under Trump with all his shenanigans and bullshit, this election is going to be about the economy, period,” the strategist said.
GOP candidates are taking issue with some of Trump’s positions.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is expected to announce a bid for the presidency in the coming months, has sought to undermine Trump’s handling of COVID-19 and lockdowns during 2020.
“You take a crisis situation like Covid, the good thing about it is that when you’re an elected executive, you have to make all kinds of decisions, you’ve got to steer that ship,” DeSantis said in January. “And the good thing is that people are able to render a judgment on that: whether they re-elect you or not.”
But Democrats say they will win any argument that compares Biden’s tenure to Trump’s. Biden, they say, helped bring the nation back from a deadly pandemic and an economy that was quickly tanking as a result.
They also tout the record job growth under Biden and highlight his legislative wins.
“If Republicans overall election strategy is to compare the Trump presidency to Biden, then who am I to stop them from handing Democrats the White House for another four years?” said Democratic strategist Rodell Mollineau.
Senate Republicans are wincing over former President Trump's early barrage of attacks against his chief rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), fearing they’re seeing a preview of a brutal primary to come that could leave both candidates weakened heading into the general election.
GOP lawmakers acknowledge DeSantis needs to show he can take a punch and aren’t shocked Trump would take hard shots at a rival as the campaign heats up.
But some are surprised the former president is unloading such a heavy barrage before DeSantis is even in the race, and they worry that getting into a yearlong mudslinging battle with Trump isn't good look for the party heading into 2024.
“I winced in 2016 and I’m wincing now,” said Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) when asked about Trump’s hardball tactics. “That’s just because that’s not my style.
“I don’t think you’ll ever take the New York style out of Donald Trump. It’s too much to ask, he’s a fully-baked cake,” she said.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who won reelection in 2022 despite casting one of seven Republican votes to convict Trump of an impeachment charge in February 2021, signaled she’s not happy about the vitriol Trump is already unleashing in the primary.
“Why anyone feels it’s necessary as part of a campaign to be nasty and personal is beyond me. It doesn’t have to be. Talk about the issues,” she said.
Trump has already settled on a nickname for the Florida governor: Ron DeSanctimonious.
Some GOP lawmakers worry that Trump attacking DeSantis before the Florida governor has even officially entered the race will hurt the party heading into 2024. (Associated Press)
Last month he flagged a photo on his social media platform, Truth Social, that allegedly showed DeSantis posing with three young women while drinking an alcoholic beverage when he taught at boarding school 20 years ago.
Trump claims that DeSantis cried in front of him while begging for his endorsement in the 2018 Florida gubernatorial primary, when he trailed his rival Adam Putman by double digits.
He said this week that he “probably” regrets endorsing DeSantis in the race.
“He was dead as a dog; he was a dead politician. He would have been working, perhaps, for a law firm, or doing something else,” Trump told reporters who traveled with him to Iowa.
Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.) said on Wednesday that he wished Trump would focus on drawing contrasts with Democrats on the issues instead of tearing down fellow Republicans.
“That’s his style. If you’re going to be in the arena, you should expect that,” he said of Trump’s personal attacks on DeSantis.
“Yes, I would like to keep it focused on the issues. I think there’s plenty to talk about, lots of contrasts you can draw with Democrats. I’d rather [they] keep their fire focused on them instead of each other,” he said.
DeSantis has tried to focus on fighting what he calls “woke activism” in Florida and getting his agenda through the state legislature, but Trump is already aiming the heavy artillery at the governor.
A super PAC aligned with Trump, Make America Great Again Inc., on Wednesday filed a complaint against DeSantis with the Florida Commission on Ethics, accusing the governor and his allies of running a “shadow presidential campaign.”
Trump’s campaign this month starting buying Facebook ads promoting a picture of DeSantis sitting next to Trump in the Oval Office captioned: “An Apprentice Leaning from the Master” and “Re-elect President Trump in 2024.”
DeSantis has put an emphasis in recent months on fighting "woke activism," despite the attention that Trump's attacks on him have drawn. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)
Speaking at an event in Davenport, Iowa, Monday, Trump accused DeSantis of wanting to “decimate” Social Security and compared him to Utah Sen. Mitt Romney (R), who voted twice to convict the former president on impeachment charges.
He also accused DeSantis of being a Republican in name only and connected him to former Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), a Republican leader who for many Trump conservatives embodied the GOP establishment’s leeriness of Trump when he entered the White House in 2017.
“You have to remember, Ron was a disciple of Paul Ryan, who is a RINO loser currently destroying FX, and would constantly vote against entitlements,” Trump said in Iowa. “And to be honest with you, Ron reminds me a lot of Mitt Romney.”
Some Republicans worry relentless negativity on the campaign trail could wind up turning off swing voters, especially suburban women and college-educated voters.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) tacitly blamed Trump’s influence on the Republican Party’s brand for the disappointing performance of GOP Senate candidates in the 2022 midterm.
“Here’s the problem, we underperformed among voters who did not like President Biden’s performance, among independents and among moderate Republicans, who looked at us and concluded [there was] too much chaos, too much negativity. And we turned off a lot of these centrist voters,” he told reporters in November.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), a counselor to the Senate GOP leadership team, said negative politics tend to backfire in North Carolina, a swing state that Trump carried in 2016 and 2020.
He said he “never used it” and “never found it productive” to wield the politics of personal destruction to win a race.
Trump appears to want to create a divide between DeSantis and the working-class and rural voters who largely make up his base. (Getty)
“I think it turns off a lot of people that are part of gettable votes for the Republican nominee,” he said.
He emphasized he wouldn’t presume to give Trump political advice, but he cautioned that “I don’t think in a purple state like North Carolina it’s the best posture, the best message for suburban voters — the voters that we saw move the other way or not vote in the last election cycle.”
Trump’s political strategy appears to be to drive a wedge between DeSantis and working-class and rural conservatives who don’t have college degrees and make up the core of Trump’s base.
Some Senate Republicans privately speculate DeSantis will not be able to defeat Trump in next year’s primary unless he can make bigger inroads with rural, evangelical and working-class white voters without college degrees. Recent polls show Trump leading by large margins among this swath of the GOP primary electorate.
GOP lawmakers say they expected a bruising race but some of them are marveling over how early the carpet bombing has started.
“Whenever you’re going to have a hard-fought primary as opposed to something that has consensus, there’s going to be injury from the warfare,” said Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.). “It looks like it’s getting started very early.”
A Fox News survey showing former President Trump leading Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis by 15 points among Republican presidential primary voters is the latest cause for heartburn among Senate Republicans who don't think Trump can win a general election match-up against President Biden.
Predictions by key Senate Republicans that Trump would fade as the 2024 election approached are being upended, putting pressure on party leaders in Washington to consider embracing the former president once again.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and other Republicans blamed the “chaos” surrounding Trump for the party’s disappointing performance in the 2022 midterm election. Some thought it would be the final straw to keep Trump off the presidential ticket next year.
And McConnell had privately told several Senate GOP colleagues that Trump’s political strength would fade the more time he spent outside the Oval Office, according to two Republican senators who spoke to The Hill.
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told Senate GOP colleagues that former President Trump's political strength would fade the longer he was out of office. (Greg Nash)
Yet a Fox News poll of 1,006 registered voters nationwide found Trump leading DeSantis 43 percent to 28 percent among GOP primary voters in a hypothetical match-up.
Republican strategists say the poll shows Trump is more resilient than many party insiders expected. And they warn that Republican senators and other party establishment figures who have ramped up their criticism of Trump since he lost the 2020 election would be wise to carefully reconsider his chances of winning the presidential nomination next year.
“I think Trump’s position is stronger than I thought it was,” said Vin Weber, a GOP strategist and former member of the House GOP leadership.
He cited reports Trump has put together a more professional campaign operation than what he had previously.
“If those articles are true, then Trump is running a very different campaign than he ran in 2016 or 2020. A formidable campaign with a disciplined candidate and 15-point lead in the polls today is more important than just a 15-point lead in the polls,” he said.
Weber said “whatever doubts people may have about Trump’s inevitability … that should not be confused with a presumption that he’s not going to win.”
“I think the Republicans that proceed on the assumption that Donald Trump will not be our candidate are taking a huge risk,” he added.
A recent Fox News poll has former President Trump leading Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis 43 to 28 percent in a hypothetical matchup. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.), who has criticized Trump from time to time and faced the former president’s wrath as a result, acknowledged Monday Trump still has a good chance of winning the party’s presidential nomination.
“I think it’s possible he could be the nominee but I also think there are other people who could be the nominee. It’s very early on. The field isn’t even close to being set,” he said.
Asked if he is surprised by Trump’s political resilience, Thune responded, “he’s got a very loyal, hardcore base of support and the other candidates aren’t that well known yet.”
Sen. John Cornyn (Texas), a member of the Senate GOP leadership team, said national polls don’t necessarily reflect how Trump will do in individual state contests — but the polling shows he could do well if GOP votes are split among many candidates.
“National polls don’t mean to much,” he said. “I just don’t think we know who’s going to be in contention. If there are a lot of people running, that probably will benefit President Trump.”
Sen. John Thune (Greg Nash)
One Republican senator who requested anonymity to discuss the GOP presidential primary pointed out that Trump has maintained a solid lead among white working-class conservative voters who don’t have college degrees.
“DeSantis’s problem is this: Trump still has self-identified very conservative primary voters and working-class voters, folks who don’t have a four-year college degree. He has really substantial leads among those folks,” the senator said.
“When you break down DeSantis’s support, it’s almost from self-identified moderates and then Never-Trumpers, which is fine but you’re not going to win a primary with that. So he’s got to make some inroads,” the senator added.
The Fox poll found Trump beating DeSantis by double digits among white Republican voters without a college degree, primary voters earning less than $50,000, white rural voters and white evangelical voters.
DeSantis led Trump 37 percent to 30 percent among white GOP voters with college degrees and they were virtually tied among suburban GOP voters, according to the survey.
NBC News reported Monday that DeSantis will skip the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland this week, a large annual gathering of conservative activists.
“It’s clear that Trump is the front-runner and Republicans in Washington need to get used to that idea,” Brian Darling, a GOP strategist and former Senate aide, said.
“The Fox News poll does indicate that Ron DeSantis is a very strong candidate but that’s it. None of the other candidates are showing the strength to challenge Trump,” he said. “Right now, the race is Donald Trump’s to lose.
“If you’re [New Hampshire Gov.] Chris Sununu or [former Maryland Gov.] Larry Hogan or [former South Carolina Gov.] Nikki Haley, these polls are not good news for you,” he added.
Darling said Trump's critics in the party establishment are feeling heartburn over the former president's popularity with GOP voters.
"He is showing more strength as he gets more active which should give the congressional delegation of Never Trumpers some pause," he added. "He's always going to have that very strong base of support."
But Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who was one of seven Senate Republicans to vote to convict Trump on an impeachment charge related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, said he still doesn’t think the former president can win a general election.
“The issue is, 'Can he win?' and I don’t think he can,” he said. “Under President Trump, we lost the House, we lost the presidency and then we lost the Senate.”
Cassidy attributed Trump’s lead in the polls to name recognition but emphasized “ultimately it comes down to, ‘Can you win?’ and over six years we’ve learned no.”
Sen. Bill Cassidy said he doesn't think former President Trump can win a general election. (Greg Nash)
Still, the Fox poll is the latest of a long string of national polls showing Trump with a comfortable lead over DeSantis, despite an unceasing flood of unflattering media reports about Trump’s legal problems and jabs from former members of his inner circle, such as former Vice President Mike Pence and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
Trump has a comfortable 13-point lead over DeSantis in the national polling average calculated by RealClearPolitics.com.
A Harvard Center for American Political Studies—Harris Poll survey of 1,838 registered voters last month showed Trump ahead of DeSantis by 23 points while a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed Trump with a 12-point lead over DeSantis in early February.
Jim McLaughlin, Trump’s pollster, said polls are “consistent” in showing that Trump is the clear front-runner for the nomination.
“President Trump’s unique selling point is he has the ability to say, ‘You know all these problems you have right now, whether it’s the economy, it’s inflation, it’s immigration, it’s war and peace? I solved all this stuff, we didn’t have those problems.’ Every day he looks better and better versus Joe Biden,” he said.
McLaughlin said “one of the reasons DeSantis has the popularity that he has is because he’s viewed as Donald Trump,” pointing to the tough-guy approach DeSantis has taken with the media and other liberal causes as well as Trump’s pivotal endorsement of DeSantis in the 2018 Florida governor’s race.
Explaining Trump’s greater popularity among Republican base voters including non-college educated White, evangelical and rural voters, McLaughlin said “it’s like why would want to go to Trump-lite, which is what they view DeSantis as, when I can get the real thing in Donald Trump.”
“It’s the old Coke versus New Coke, people want their old Coke,” he added. “They look at Trump and said he did this stuff, he solved these problems.”
Former President Trump on Monday responded to the Jan. 6 committee’s decision to urge the Justice Department to prosecute him and some of his associates over their involvement in the Capitol riot and efforts to overturn the 2020 election, saying the move makes him “stronger.”
“These folks don’t get it that when they come after me, people who love freedom rally around me. It strengthens me. What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger," Trump said on his Truth Social social media platform.
In its final public meeting hours earlier, the Jan. 6 panel unveiled criminal referrals recommending that the DOJ prosecute Trump on charges of inciting an insurrection, conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to make a false statement and obstruction of an official proceeding.
“The Fake charges made by the highly partisan Unselect Committee of January 6th have already been submitted, prosecuted, and tried in the form of Impeachment Hoax # 2. I WON convincingly. Double Jeopardy anyone!” Trump wrote hours after the panel’s recommendations were formally made.
Trump, who last month announced another run for the White House in 2024, painted the probes as an effort to undercut his campaign. The insurrection charge could bar Trump from running for elected office again.
“The people understand that the Democratic Bureau of Investigation, the DBI, are out to keep me from running for president because they know I’ll win and that this whole business of prosecuting me is just like impeachment was — a partisan attempt to sideline me and the Republican Party,” Trump said.
At the meeting, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), who is leaving Congress after she lost her primary election to a Trump-backed candidate, said Trump is “unfit for any office.”
The former president also rebuffed the panel’s determination of his 187 minutes of inaction between the start of the riot and Trump’s video message urging the rioters to "go home." Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.) on Monday called it an “extreme dereliction of duty,” with other lawmakers calling Trump's inaction one of the panel's most shameful findings.
The Jan. 6 panel will release a much-anticipated report on its findings on Wednesday before it is dissolved in the next Congress.
Former President Trump on Monday responded to the Jan. 6 committee’s decision to urge the Justice Department to prosecute him and some of his associates over their involvement in the Capitol riot and efforts to overturn the 2020 election, saying the move makes him “stronger.”
“These folks don’t get it that when they come after me, people who love freedom rally around me. It strengthens me. What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger," Trump said on his Truth Social social media platform.
In its final public meeting hours earlier, the Jan. 6 panel unveiled criminal referrals recommending that the DOJ prosecute Trump on charges of inciting an insurrection, conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to make a false statement and obstruction of an official proceeding.
“The Fake charges made by the highly partisan Unselect Committee of January 6th have already been submitted, prosecuted, and tried in the form of Impeachment Hoax # 2. I WON convincingly. Double Jeopardy anyone!” Trump wrote hours after the panel’s recommendations were formally made.
Trump, who last month announced another run for the White House in 2024, painted the probes as an effort to undercut his campaign. The insurrection charge could bar Trump from running for elected office again.
“The people understand that the Democratic Bureau of Investigation, the DBI, are out to keep me from running for president because they know I’ll win and that this whole business of prosecuting me is just like impeachment was — a partisan attempt to sideline me and the Republican Party,” Trump said.
At the meeting, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), who is leaving Congress after she lost her primary election to a Trump-backed candidate, said Trump is “unfit for any office.”
The former president also rebuffed the panel’s determination of his 187 minutes of inaction between the start of the riot and Trump’s video message urging the rioters to "go home." Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.) on Monday called it an “extreme dereliction of duty,” with other lawmakers calling Trump's inaction one of the panel's most shameful findings.
The Jan. 6 panel will release a much-anticipated report on its findings on Wednesday before it is dissolved in the next Congress.
Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Wednesday morning took a victory lap after Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) won his runoff election, declaring the Supreme Court’s decision striking down abortion rights and the House Jan. 6 hearings were key factors in Democrats expanding their Senate majority.
“It is a good morning, a great morning!” Schumer exulted at a press conference Wednesday, pointing out that this year was the first time since 1934 that the president’s party did not lose a single Senate incumbent in a midterm election.
Schumer said it looked in April like Democrats would lose control of the Senate. But the tide turned after a 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court struck down the federal right to an abortion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization and the House Jan. 6 select committee's public hearings put a spotlight on the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
He also cited Supreme Court decisions striking down a century-old New York law restricting the carrying of concealed firearms and limiting the Environmental Protection Agency's power to regulate coal plants.
“In May and June, the public began to realize how far right these MAGA Republicans had gone. The Dobbs decision was the crystallization of that, of course, when people said, ‘Wow these MAGA Republicans are serious about turning the clock all the way back,’” Schumer said, referring to former President Trump’s slogan, “Make America Great Again.”
“But then there were the two other Supreme Court decisions on concealed carry and on limiting what we could do to stop coal plants from poisoning the atmosphere,” he added.
Schumer also credited the House Jan. 6 hearings, in which two moderate Republicans, Reps. Liz Cheney (Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (Ill.), played starring roles, in bringing to light damning details surrounding the attack on the Capitol and what Trump did to encourage the violence that left several people dead.
“There were the Jan. 6 hearings. I think they had an important effect because people didn’t just read about something that happened once, but every night they saw on TV these hooligans, these insurrections being violent, beating up police officers,” Schumer told reporters.
“They saw all of that and they said, ‘Wow,’” he added. “And the third thing is they saw the Republican leaders wouldn’t even attack this craziness.”
Senate Minority Whip John Thune (S.D.), the No. 2 ranking Senate GOP leader, however, pushed back Wednesday on Schumer’s assertion that Republican leaders were not vocal enough in condemning the Jan. 6 attack or Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.
“He’s got his own theories on that. I think it was a lot of things,” Thune said of Schumer’s assessment of why Senate Democrats picked up a seat.
“I think it was pretty vocal. If you look at statements some of our leaders have made, including statements that I have made, and the attacks the president made on some of us throughout the process,” Thune said. “I don’t think it was unclear.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) condemned Trump’s behavior in the lead-up to the Jan. 6 attack in a fiery floor speech after voting to acquit him on technical grounds of inciting an insurrection in his second impeachment trial.
“There is no question that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day,” he said. “The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president.”
McConnell said the pro-Trump mob attacked the Capitol “because they had been fed wild falsehoods by the most powerful man on Earth — because he was angry he’d lost an election.”
Since that forceful speech, however, McConnell has rarely commented on Trump’s behavior or statements, though he did recently criticize the former president’s dinner with an outspoken white supremacist and antisemite and Trump's suggestion that the Constitution should be suspended to allow him to return to the Oval Office.
Schumer on Wednesday said voters may have still had doubts about the Democrats’ ability to govern, but that changed after Democrats passed a bipartisan bill to address gun violence in the wake of two high-profile mass shootings in Buffalo, N.Y., and Uvalde, Texas.
He also cited passage of bipartisan legislation to help veterans suffering health problems because of exposure to toxic burn pits, radiation and other hazards and passage of a $280 billion bill to help the domestic semiconductor manufacturing industry compete with China.
And he lauded the enactment of the Inflation Reduction Act, which established a 15 percent minimum corporate tax, allocated $370 billion to energy programs and to fight climate change and set new rules for prescription drug pricing, as a major win.
“In June [voters] still held doubts about the Democratic Party,” Schumer noted. “The turning point really occurred this summer where we passed six major bills, five bipartisan, all of which affected people’s lives."
“They were the things people wanted us to talk about. Making the environment better, dealing with the high cost of prescription drugs, helping our veterans … dealing with gun safety, getting American jobs here, not in China,” he said.
“By Sept. 1, I thought we’d win the Senate, we’d keep the Senate, because the combination of those two things was the powerful one-two punch that made us defy all the odds,” he said.
Correction: An earlier version of this report incorrectly characterized Hunter Biden.
House Democrats were knocked out of power at the polls this month, losing at least six seats to a Republican Party that will take control of the lower chamber next year with designs to neutralize President Biden through the second half of his first term.
CNN and NBC both projected that Republicans would take the House majority on Wednesday evening, with a handful of races still to be decided. Republicans could still win several more seats, but they are expected to have a very narrow majority.
The GOP takeover had been expected long before last week’s midterm elections, but it took eightdays of counting close returns for Republicans to hit the magic number — 218 — that grants them control of the House in the next Congress.
The delay was an unwelcome development for GOP leaders, who charged into the elections with high expectations of sweeping vulnerable Democrats from battleground districts coast to coast. Their victory celebration was scheduled for election night, on Nov. 8.
Instead, a vast majority of those Democratic “frontliners” held firm. And many of the races Republicans ultimately won were so close that verification took days. The surprising results mean that Republicans will take over the chamber next year with a much smaller majority than they had hoped — a dynamic that will likely create headaches for GOP leaders in managing a restive right flank.
Indeed, those internal struggles already surfaced this week surrounding Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) bid to win the Speakership next year. On Tuesday, McCarthy easily won the GOP nomination for that spot. But the three dozen Republican defectors were both a warning that he has work to do in order to secure the gavel when the full House votes on Jan. 3, and a preview of the internal battles to come, regardless of which Republican emerges as Speaker.
Still, the midterm outcome lends enormous new powers to Republicans on Capitol Hill, transforming the workings of Washington after four years when Democrats ran the lower chamber. And the flip carries enormous implications for both parties heading into the final two years of Biden’s first term in the White House.
Most significantly, the president will no longer have his allies empowered to advance the administration’s legislative goals on the House floor, likely bringing Biden’s ambitious policy agenda to a screeching halt next year.
Nor will Democrats be able to shield Biden on the committee level, where Republicans are already promising a long and growing list of politically fraught investigations into everything from the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan to the overseas business dealings of the president’s youngest son Hunter Biden.
Democrats are keenly aware of the potential political perils lurking behind such investigations. The House Republicans’ marathon Benghazi probe undermined Hillary Clinton’s prospects in the 2016 presidential race. And a steady focus on Biden controversies in the next Congress could do similar damage to the president and the Democrats heading into the 2024 cycle, when former President Trump could be on the ballot.
And Republicans might not stop at mere investigations.
Democrats, who had impeached Trump twice during his tenure, might find themselves on the other side of that issue under a GOP-controlled House, where conservatives are already making clear their intentions to impeach Biden, members of his Cabinet or both.
The midterm results also put a new spin on the old questions swirling around the future of the Democratic leaders in the lower chamber, where Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and her top two deputies — Reps. Steny Hoyer (Md.) and James Clyburn (S.C.) — have been in place for almost two decades. All three are in their 80s, and a younger group of ambitious lawmakers has been itching for years for the chance to climb into the leadership ranks.
Four years ago, Pelosi had pledged to bow out of the top leadership spot at the end of this term — a promise Hoyer and Clyburn were not party to. But the Democrats’ overperformance on Election Day would have been impossible without Pelosi’s prodigious fundraising, and it’s sparked new chatter that the long-time Democratic leader could easily remain in power — if she chooses to do so.
The Speaker, true to style, has declined to announce her intentions. And the Democrats’ leadership elections are not scheduled until Nov. 30, lending her a window to weigh that decision. Still, the new midterm tally, sending Democrats into the minority next year, is expected to expedite her announcement.
Meanwhile, Pelosi’s reticence has left other top leaders in a state of limbo, waiting for word of her plans so they can declare their own.
Neither Hoyer nor Clyburn has ruled out another leadership bid. And a trio of younger Democratic leaders — Reps. Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.), Katherine Clark (Mass.) and Pete Aguilar (Calif.) — are waiting to run for the top spots when the opportunity arrives.
Jeffries, the current chair of the Democratic Caucus, is widely believed to be the favorite to replace Pelosi should she step down. But Hoyer has loyalists of his own. And Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who built a national following as lead manager of Trump’s first impeachment, has raised enormous amounts of money this cycle and is said to be eyeing the spot.
Other Democrats vying for leadership positions include Rep. Joe Neguse (Colo.), who’s seeking to replace Jeffries as Caucus chairman. And at least four lawmakers — Reps. Debbie Dingell (Mich.), Joyce Beatty (Ohio), Ted Lieu (Calif.) and Madeleine Dean (Pa.) — are competing to replace Aguilar as caucus vice chairman.
Rounding out the list of top leaders, Rep. Tony Cárdenas (Calif.) has launched a run to lead the Democrats’ campaign arm in the next Congress, a spot soon to be vacated after Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney lost a tough reelection race in upstate New York.
Rep. Ami Bera (Calif.), who was in charge of protecting vulnerable incumbents for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) this cycle, is expected to jump into the race against Cárdenas.
There are other changes in store, as well.
The Democrats’ 2023 roster was bound to look much different even long before the midterm results came in, due to a wave of retirements that featured some of the leading figures in the party.
The list of outgoing lawmakers includes Reps. Pete DeFazio (Ore.), a 36-year veteran who heads the Transportation Committee; John Yarmuth (Ky.), chairman of the Budget Committee; Cheri Bustos (Ill.), who led the DCCC in the 2020 cycle; Stephanie Murphy (Fla.), a member of the Jan. 6 committee investigating last year’s attack on the Capitol and a co-chair of the centrist Blue Dogs; and Bobby Rush (Ill.), a 30-year veteran who remains the only politician ever to defeat Barack Obama in an election.
The midterms also took a toll. And when they return next year, Democrats will be without several prominent lawmakers who lost reelection battles on Tuesday. That list includes Reps. Elaine Luria (Va.), another member of the Jan. 6 committee; Tom Malinowski (N.J.), a former human rights activist and diplomat under the Obama administration; and Tom O’Halleran (Ariz.), a Republican-turned-moderate Democrat who also co-chairs the Blue Dogs.
Yet it was Maloney who was the biggest trophy for Republicans at the polls. The 10-year veteran proved highly successful in protecting vulnerable seats in a cycle when Democrats were expecting big losses, but he couldn’t protect his own.
"It will take time to understand all of the races and their outcomes,” Maloney told reporters in Washington shortly after conceding to his Republican opponent. But even in defeat, he took a small victory lap.
“If we fall a little short, we're going to know that we gave it our all,” he said. “And we beat the spread.”
President Trump is mounting a comeback bid with the hope that the GOP will once again rally behind him — just as some Republicans worry nominating him for president for a third time is a recipe for failure at the ballot box.
The former president announced the launch of his 2024 presidential campaign from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida Tuesday night, claiming the country has slipped into anarchy under President Biden and arguing he could repeat the policy successes of his first term.
But he did so at a time when the calls from some party members to move on from Trump are as loud as they’ve been since he left office under the cloud of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot and a second impeachment.
Trump pointed to a strong economy before the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, reworked trade deals and a brash approach to international relations that kept the U.S. out of foreign conflicts as a case for another term.
But he ignored the major concerns some in the party have about his viability, steering clear of his pandemic response and his role in the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol and absolving himself of blame for the party’s underwhelming midterm showing.
“The voting will be much different. 2024. Are you getting ready?” Trump said to applause. “I am, too.”
Republicans are sifting through the aftermath of last week’s midterm elections, where expected sweeping victories never materialized. Democrats will hold on to their majority in the Senate, while Republicans appear poised to retake the House with a smaller margin than many hoped.
For some prominent figures in the party, it served as an inflection point. And while many did not name Trump explicitly, their message was clear: The party can choose to move away from making Trump central to everything it does, or it can risk more stinging defeats in 2024.
“We underperformed among independents and moderates, because their impression of many of the people in our party in leadership roles is that they’re involved in chaos, negativity, excessive attacks, and it frightened independent and moderate Republican voters,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Tuesday.
Former Vice President Mike Pence, who served alongside Trump for four years, said on SiriusXM that the candidates who fared best in the midterms offered forward-looking solutions to major problems like inflation and crime, while “candidates that were focused on relitigating the last election, I think, did not fare as well.”
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) called the 2022 midterms “the funeral for the Republican Party as we know it.”
And Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who is viewed as perhaps Trump’s chief rival for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, expressed concern that the party was unable to capitalize on Biden’s unpopularity with many voters.
“These independent voters aren’t voting for our candidates, even with Biden in the White House and the failures that we’re seeing. That’s a problem,” DeSantis said Tuesday.
Some of the blame for the GOP’s underwhelming midterm performance has fallen on Trump, whose endorsements helped carry candidates through Senate, House and gubernatorial primaries but not to victory in the general elections.
Trump made a point to address the midterm outcome during his speech, and he even acknowledged the party was facing deserved criticism. But the criticism should not be directed at him, Trump said.
Many of Trump’s highest profile and most meaningful endorsements lost in the general election: Mehmet Oz and Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania’s Senate and gubernatorial races, respectively; Blake Masters and Kari Lake in Arizona’s Senate and gubernatorial races, respectively; Tudor Dixon in Michigan’s gubernatorial race; Tim Michels in Wisconsin’s gubernatorial race; and Don Bolduc in New Hampshire’s Senate race.
Trump instead blamed voters for the poor showing for Republicans, suggesting they did not yet realize how bad the Biden administration’s policies would be for them.
“Citizens of our country have not yet realized the pain our country is going through … they don’t quite feel it yet. But they will very soon,” Trump said. “I have no doubt that by 2024 it will sadly be much worse, and they will see much more clearly what happened.”
The midterm results have left Trump’s influence within the party at perhaps its most precarious point since right after he left the White House, when many Republicans appeared ready to distance themselves from Trump after he spent months whipping supporters into a frenzy over the 2020 election, culminating in the riot at the Capitol.
While that criticism faded and much of the GOP has remained loyal to Trump in the two years since, the question now is whether the former president can stave off the push among some conservatives to move on to a candidate who can carry on Trump’s brand of politics without the baggage.
Pence has indicated he is giving thought to a 2024 presidential bid, as has former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Both have said Trump’s campaign launch will not affect their decisions.
DeSantis, meanwhile, has become the star of the moment for many conservatives, earning fawning coverage from Fox News and the New York Post after a landslide reelection win last week.
The conservative Club for Growth, which broke with Trump on some of his midterm endorsements, released a poll on the eve of his 2024 announcement showing DeSantis leading Trump in head-to-head match-ups in early primary states like Iowa and New Hampshire, as well as their home state of Florida.
A Politico-Morning Consult poll released this week, however, was more favorable for Trump, finding that 47 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents said they would back him in a presidential primary if it were held today, compared to 33 percent who said they’d support the Florida governor.
Since 2015, the party has been molded in Trump’s image. He reshaped the way the GOP discusses immigration, international alliances and trade. He brought scores of new voters into the fold, solidified the party’s hold on states like Ohio and Florida and developed a devoted following, giving him a remarkably high floor of support within the party.
But Trump has also turned off independent and moderate voters with his unpredictability, his constant personal attacks on those who criticize or oppose him, his fixation on the falsehood that the 2020 election was stolen and his legal entanglements over his business dealings and handling of classified documents, the latter of which involved a search of the property where he made Tuesday night’s announcement.
Tuesday’s speech served as the start of what will be a lengthy decisionmaking process for the GOP about whether it will remain Trump’s party for the foreseeable future, or if the electorate is ready to move on.
"The journey ahead of us will not be easy,” Trump said. “Anyone who truly seeks to take on this rigged and corrupt system will be faced with a storm of fire that only a few could understand.”
America’s allies in Europe breathed a sigh of relief as the U.S. midterm contests come to a close. U.S. allies believe slimmer margins of control between Democrats and Republicans in Congress will not jeopardize American support to Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression.
From Kyiv to Berlin and Tbilisi, Georgia, fears that a larger Republican majority would move the U.S. back into the isolationist mindset of the Trump presidency were squashed. But the international community will be closely watching what a likely divided government means for President Biden’s leadership role among allies.
But even amid European relief, a group of Republicans largely backed by former President Trump still put the fate of U.S. support to Ukraine increasingly under strain.
The United States is the largest supplier of military and economic assistance to Ukraine, and Europeans are bracing for a potential Trump comeback after the former president teased announcing a 2024 run.
“I think there's kind of a bit of a relief, especially in Europe … that the march of MAGA Republicanism, Trumpism seems to have stopped in its tracks a bit,” said Matthias Matthijs, senior fellow for Europe at the Council on Foreign Relations. “That’s at least the interpretation here. That this is not a foregone conclusion that 2024 will result in some sort of isolationist presidency again.”
Khatia Dekanoidze, an opposition lawmaker from Georgia, told The Hill that the Georgian public are “interested in who will be winning in the House and who will be running the Senate and what the balance is, what would be decided regarding Ukrainian support.”
“Also it’s very interesting from the people’s perspective, will Trump be back? It’s a very common question,” she added.
Yevgen Korniychuck, Ukraine’s ambassador to Israel, told The Hill that Kyiv is watching closely the “minority of pro-Trump” Republicans, raising concern that “they are not really happy with support of Ukraine.”
“But the full majority will be in support, I’m sure. This is the most important for us,” he said.
Europeans are also paying close attention to the presidential aspirations of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who has increasingly come under attacks from Trump, signaling his outsized influence in the GOP.
“Ron DeSantis has arrived as a name in the German press,” said Peter Rough, a senior fellow at Hudson Institute with a focus on Europe.
“[The Germans] say Ron DeSantis may be even more dangerous than Trump because he can actually implement and execute his policies, unlike DJT [Donald J. Trump]. ‘Trump but with a brain,’ they said last night on the [German] prime-time talk show I was on.”
Europeans welcomed Biden's focus on improving the transatlantic relationship that was made a target by Trump, who threatened to pull out of NATO, antagonized leaders in Germany and France and embraced far-right outliers like Hungary’s Prime Minister Victor Orbán.
“There’s no question that folks in Europe do wonder what’s going to happen in 2024,” said Marjorie Chorlins, senior vice president for Europe at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “They do see the more hawkish, less pro-transatlantic rhetoric that came out of the last administration as a problem and that there’s a risk that’s going to come back.”
Chorlins said that Europeans welcome closer cooperation with the U.S., and are looking to leverage the unity Biden rallied in support for Ukraine — coordinating sanctions against Moscow and pooling military and economic assistance for Kyiv — to address other aspects of the American relationship with the European Union.
“The question is whether we can leverage the unity that we found around Ukraine and Russia, and take that energy and apply it in other ways,” she said.
Biden, in a post-midterm-election press conference on Wednesday, said that the “vast majority” of allies are looking to cooperate when asked how other world leaders should view this moment for the U.S., with Trump teasing another presidential run.
Biden furtherwarned against isolationism that Trump had embraced.
“What I find is that they want to know: Is the United States stable? Do we know what we’re about? Are we the same democracy we've always been?” the president said. “Because, look, the rest of the world looks to us. … If the United States tomorrow were to, quote, ‘withdraw from the world,’ a lot of things would change around the world.”
Emily Horne, former National Security Council spokesperson and special assistant to Biden, called the midterm elections the dog that didn’t bark for European allies and partners.
“There’s some temporary relief now, but not on the bigger question of 2024 and whether Trump or someone like him could come back and derail so much of the progress that we have been able to make together with Europe, not just on Ukraine, but on everything from getting COVID under control to preparing for future pandemics to tackling climate change,” said Horne, founder of Allegro Public Affairs.
Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) who could become the next House Speaker, raised eyebrows last month when he said Republicans would scrutinize aid to Ukraine if they have a majority, comments he has since tried to defend as oversight rather than a lack of support for Ukraine.
Biden on Wednesday said he is optimistic that funding and bipartisan support for Ukraine would continue, adding that he would be surprised if there’s a majority of Republicans who are unwilling to help.
Horne argued that it would be a gift to Russian President Vladimir Putin if a Republican-led House puts a halt to the flow of munitions to Ukrainians. She added that while McCarthy knows the consequences of such a move, it comes down to the others in his camp.
“The question is, can he control the actors in his caucus that care more about their Twitter sound bites than doing the right thing by both U.S. security interests in Europe and the Ukrainian people?” Horne said.
But, she added, there is an understanding among allies that “there are individuals who get a lot of airtime who actually have very little sway over what’s in the policy that goes forward for the president's signature.”
Allies worry about other aspects of a Republican majority in Congress and how it could impact Biden’s overall focus on the war in Ukraine and foreign policy issues like climate and China.
With a potential Republican majority in the House, there is a concern among Europeans that GOP-led investigations into Biden could distract him from international affairs, Matthijs said.
“There is worry in Europe that Biden will now be distracted by a House that will make his life miserable. That all we’re going to hear about is Hunter Biden’s laptop and these kinds of fake impeachment proceedings against the president, the vice president, the secretary of state, Tony Fauci, you name it,” he said.
But, he said that Europeans feel “slightly better” about the U.S. overall after the midterm elections.
“It doesn't mean much will change right away because of this election, but at least it's a very helpful reminder, I think, to a lot of people in Europe that the U.S. is capable of self-correction when it goes too much in one direction,” he said.
