Philippa Kaur

Donald Trump was not on the ballot for the 2022 US midterms. But the former president’s shadow still falls heavily across American politics and he has done all he can to keep it that way. His attempt to both set the political agenda for 2022 and to endorse his style of candidates appears to have had a profound impact on this year’s ballots and has implications for the next presidential election in 2024.

The former president is reported to be weighing up whether to launch his bid for the 2024 election. He previously said he would announce his decision on Tuesday November 15. But after the poor showing of the slate of candidates he had enthusiastically endorsed ahead of the midterms, many political analysts are speculating that he might now put his ambitions on hold.

Trump is taking a big share of the blame for the failure of the Republican Party to capitalise on the highest inflation figures in 40 years, America’s rising murder rate, and what Republicans’ perceive as Joe Biden’s underperformance as president.

Many commentators are asking whether the failure of the expected GOP “red wave” might also mark a passing of the high watermark for the political fortunes of the 45th president. Or, to put it another way, has America passed “peak Trump”?

Midterm elections are traditionally used to show disapproval of the incumbent president. Given that the Democrats held the House by just five votes and the Senate was evenly split, the Republicans were confident of a crushing victory.

Instead, what transpired was one of the best midterm election results for a sitting Democratic president in decades. This will inevitably give Republicans pause to think. The answer will not be difficult to deduce.

Devotion: Trump fans at a rally for Marco Rubio in Miami, Florida.
EPA-EFE/Cristobal Herrerea-Ulashkevich

While Trump inspires a cult-like adulation from around 15% of the population, his brand of “America first” nationalism has never commanded majority support. Indeed in the 2016 presidential election, the 2018 midterms and again in the 2020 election, the Democrats consistently won the popular vote – even though that popularity did not always translate into power.

But in the 2022 midterms, Trump’s negative impact on the result was clear. In the run-up to the vote on November 9, Trump endorsed a slate of candidates. These were chosen not on their political experience, but on their loyalty to him and his unfounded claim that the 2020 election was stolen. These candidates underperformed on a national basis, robbing the Republicans of potentially winnable seats in a number of swing states.

This happened in Pennsylvania where out-of-state TV doctor Mehmet Oz lost to the Democrats by 8%, and in Georgia where Hershel Walker also underperformed. The latter case is particularly illuminating. Walker, a former football star, managed just 48% of the vote against longtime incumbent Raphael Warnock and faces a runoff election in December. Meanwhile, the non-Trumpian mainstream Republican governor, Brian Kemp, was reelected by a margin of more than seven points.

What this suggests is a willingness among many voters to reject Trumpian extremism without necessarily abandoning the whole Republican ticket. This pattern was repeated nationally, as Trump-endorsed candidates underperformed compared to mainstream Republicans.

The most extreme election deniers did worst of all. Doug Mastriano – who reportedly spent thousands of dollars chartering buses to ferry people to Washington DC on January 6 2020 when the Capitol riot occurred – was beaten by 14 points in his bid for Pennsylvania governor. Daniel Cox – who promised he would audit the 2020 election if he were elected – was beaten by 24 points in the Maryland gubernatorial race.

Where Trump-endorsed candidates did win – such as JD Vance in Ohio – they did so by distancing themselves from their patron’s more extreme positions. It appears that many swing voters and moderate Republicans actually heeded Joe Biden’s call to reject candidates who posed a threat to the proper working of US democracy.

Next generation GOP: Florida governor Ron DeSantis is reportedly eyeing a tilt at the 2024 presidential election.
EPA-EFE/Cristobal Herrerea-Ulashkevich

The DeSantis factor

Another key takeaway from the midterms with implications for the Trump’s future has been the success of his former protege, now rival, Ron DeSantis. His reelection as governor by nearly 20 points in what is now Trump’s home state of Florida was a result that defied the national trend.

Significantly, DeSantis rejected Trump’s election denialism and abortion extremism, running instead on the economy, immigration and crime. He now has a clear power base from which to launch a bid for the Republican nomination for the presidency in 2024 if he so chooses.

While his brand of white Christian nationalism embraces much of the cultural conservativism of the America first movement, DeSantis is careful to avoid its more extreme positions. Importantly, he also lacks his former mentor’s personal baggage and casual bigotry. Of his generation of republicans, DeSantis is the most dynamic and appears well placed to step up to the national level and present his version of populist conservatism in a less alienating and antagonising form than Trump.

Read more:
Ron DeSantis: the Florida governor who may steal the Republican nomination from under his mentor Donald Trump’s nose

Where now for the GOP?

The lessons of the midterms for the GOP are fairly clear to see, even if they are difficult to act upon. Although Trump remains extravagantly popular with his base, the 2022 result shows that even many Republicans would rather vote for alternative candidates than Trump and his soundalikes. And, with the emergence of DeSantis, the GOP has the chance to embrace a candidate with a proven electoral record.

The verdict of the American electorate from these elections is that the moment of “peak Trump” has indeed passed. It only remains for the Republican party to go through the painful process of removing Trump from his grip of the Grand Old Party. More

The first major election since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade saw abortion rights on the ballot in a record number of states. The outcomes of these initiatives suggest that when Kansas voters in August 2022 rejected a proposed constitutional amendment declaring there is no state right to abortion, it was not a fluke.

Indeed, results following the close of polls on Nov. 8 revealed that voters in Kentucky had followed suit and rejected a similar constitutional amendment. And in three other states — California, Michigan and Vermont — voters approved constitutional amendments to safeguard abortion access as part of a broader protection of personal reproductive autonomy, including contraception. In Vermont, the margin of victory was sweeping: 77.2% to 22.8%, with 95% of votes in.

In Montana, where restrictive abortion laws already prohibit post-viability abortions – that is, those after 24 weeks of pregnancy – voters rejected a referendum that threatened doctors with criminal penalties of up to 20 years in prison if they did not try to sustain the life of a fetus “born alive” after an abortion.

All told, the outcome of the initiatives underscores the crucial role of state law after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling returned the issue of abortion access back to “the people” and the states.

Abortion on the ballot and the campaign trail

But abortion was also “on the ballot” indirectly – in key state and federal elections in which abortion appeared to have been a campaign issue.

In Pennsylvania, Democrat Josh Shapiro, the state’s Attorney General, won the race for governor over Republican Doug Mastriano, and Democrat John Fetterman defeated Dr. Mehmet Oz for the available U.S. Senate seat. Access to abortion care and protecting abortion rights were key themes in Shapiro’s campaign, while Mastriano stressed culture war issues. Commentary and exit polling suggest that abortion was a motivating issue among Pennsylvania voters – especially younger voters.

In New York, where Governor Kathy Hochul defeated Republican challenger Lee Zeldin, the Democrat incumbent billed herself as “the reason why abortion is protected in New York” and stressed a governor’s “immense” power to affect abortion rights.

Exit polls indicate 60% of voters nationwide – up 9% since 2020 – believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases.

A majority – 60% – of voters expressed anger at the Supreme Court over the Dobbs ruling and indicated that they trusted the Democratic Party more than the Republican Party on the issue by a margin of 52% to 42%. These sentiments played out in the election results. For example, in New Hampshire, Democrat Maggie Hassan held onto her Senate seat against a Republican challenger, Don Bolduc, who called the Dobbs ruling a reason to “rejoice.” And 35% of New Hampshire voters said abortion was their top issue, behind only inflation at 36%. Polls also show a gender gap, with more women than men reporting abortion as their top issue.

More state battles over abortion?

Ballot initiatives are likely to continue into the 2024 presidential election given voters’ response on Tuesday.

The midterm elections point toward protecting access to abortion, more so than preelection polls suggested they would.

As of this writing, the House and Senate hang in the balance, yet federal bills that would protect or restrict access to abortion were already unlikely to become laws given that the Supreme Court has indicated states should decide their own laws. This means state laws remain on the front line, and the midterm election was just a “hold the line” moment.

Most states have not yet had legislative sessions or elections, and most candidacies were declared before Dobbs was decided. The midterm elections didn’t make the landscape worse for access to care – indeed, the right to abortion care was expanded, or least protected in some places. But the high variability of state laws will mean that conflicts continue both among states, and between states and the federal government.

Patient and provider confusion will likely continue, given the high degree of state law variability, which will limit access to care and increase risks in some states. More