Donald Trump really thought the midterm elections were going to go his way, as he crowed while campaigning for Republicans and as he posted early Tuesday afternoon.
“Guam, which has always been considered strongly Democrat, just had an early call for a REPUBLICAN Victory in the top spot, Governor — Congratulations to Tony Ada!” the president wrote. “Also, the Republicans have the Majority in the State Senate. Wow, hopefully that’s an indication for things to come!”
It wasn’t. It really, really wasn’t.
Democrats won just about everything. The party is going to wind up with over 250 seats in the House of Representatives, a massive advantage, and at least 55 seats in the Senate after improbably winning races in states like Texas, South Carolina, Kansas, Maine, and Iowa. Democrats won nearly every governorship they could have hoped for, including in Texas, as well as scores of down-ballot races. There are no two ways about it: the midterm elections were a massive, historic rebuke of Trump and the Republicans who support him.
Before Tuesday, Trump had seemed poised to reject the results and cry election fraud. He’d been meeting with election deniers at the White House, game-planning how to contest an unfavorable outcome. He said recently that he’d only accept the results if they were “honest.” The Justice Department dispatched poll monitors to ballot boxes. But the blue wave was so overwhelming on Tuesday that it swept up Trump’s ego, and over the course of the night forced the president to realize that his movement may be ending, and that he better go ahead and start grieving. He was even able to make his way through all five stages of grief over the course of Election Day.
DENIAL
Trump long rejected the idea that the polls were right in predicting that Americans weren’t going to support a president who starts unnecessary wars and causes prices to skyrocket. It was all fake news, he said, and everyone still loved him. Trump seemed to believe that what Americans really cared about, more than their own livelihoods, were his Washington, D.C., renovations — that and the physiques of the Republicans he endorsed.
It’s why on the eve of the elections Trump gave a speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool to tout his work there. As The Wall Street Journal put it in its report on the bizarre event, “Trump views beautification of Washington as one of his strongest legacies, and he has told advisers it inspires pride in the country. Aides have privately encouraged him to focus on other things, but the president has largely rejected that advice, believing that the issue will resonate with voters.”
Trump’s confidence, despite nearly every possible indicator pointing with flashing lights at a midterm rebuke, was remarkable. It lasted well into Tuesday afternoon, with the president posting clips of right-wing commentators bubbling with optimism over early turnout numbers in Florida, and others insisting the polls were wrong and Republicans could very well win big.
They did in Guam, at least.
ANGER
As the turnout numbers began to favor Democrats, Trump took out much of his ire at Fox News“Watching the Pre-Election Results on Fox News, but I can’t stand Jessica Tarlov’s voice — DUMB AS A ROCK, but it’s the voice that gets me,” he wrote just before 5:30 p.m. ET. “Have to go somewhere else until that LOSER is off the air — I’ll be back later!”
He exploded again an hour later, writing that the network’s polling is “BULLSHIT.”
He went nuclear 30 minutes later, at 7 p.m., going on a lengthy rant about how Fox News’ ratings are way down because “they are AGAINST me!” and claiming that the network is on the verge of collapse.
BARGAINING
It was clear by 10 p.m. that the night was not going to go the GOP’s way — but the White House wanted to make sure everyone understood that this wasn’t Trump’s fault. If only he had been on the ballot, well then it would have been a red wave, actually. (Trump repeatedly told supporters to pretend he was on the ballot in the weeks leading up to the elections.)
“Candidate quality matters, and President Trump did a better job promoting many of the candidates on the ballot than the candidates did themselves,” a White House official told Peter Doocy of Fox News. “President Trump’s resolve to stop the Radical Left is only going to become stronger. Buckle up.”
Trump said the same thing a few minutes later, insisting that if he were on the ballot, Republicans would have won in a landslide
Trump started to dig in on the idea, writing that if outgoing Texas Governor Greg Abbott “hadn’t become a RINO in the last six months of his Political Life, he wouldn’t have lost.” An hour later he wrote that he had decided he was “going to become a Political Pundit, both good and bad, on the reasons these Candidates won and lost.”
Trump then attacked Fox News again, claiming they “bear responsibility for these losses.”
DEPRESSION
Trump started calling into networks as the night wore on. The anger seemed to have largely passed. The aggressive rationalizing had subsided. He was still making excuses and trying to sort through what happened, but he sounded tired and dejected.
“I’m a little surprised,” he told Fox News in a phone interview. “I thought they’d do better.”
Trump again blamed the Republican candidates for not being up to snuff, and again criticized Fox News, just without much enthusiasm. “I read at Fox that I’m not popular,” he laughed. “The Fox polls are terrible. You ought to get yourself a good pollster because your polls are the worst,” he said.
Host Bret Baier then pointed out that the results were close to what the Fox polls showed.
“Well, I don’t know about that,” Trump replied, before claiming that the Fox polls have been wrong about him for over a decade.
“I don’t care. It doesn’t matter,” he added.
ACCEPTANCE
Trump may never place the blame at his own feet, but he did ultimately accept that Democrats had won and that they were going to be in control of Congress for the rest of his time in office. Earlier in the night, he posted to Truth Social an image of a MAGA hat only with the word VETO on it, indicating that he was ready to fight congressional Democrats tooth-and-nail, and that he’d block any legislation they might try to pass. He had softened considerably by the time he talked to Politico’s Dash Burns later on Tuesday night.
“We’re going to work with the Democrats,” he said. “I don’t want to be just sitting there for two years vetoing everything. I want to see things happen, too.”
Trump made it seem like he was going to go on the warpath blaming Republicans for the loss, calling out Abbott before announcing on Truth Social that he would become a “political pundit,” but on this too he pulled back. “I don’t want to blame anyone,” he said when asked if there were candidates he didn’t think did enough to win.
“It was a very interesting period of time,” he added of the Democratic sweep, echoing the reflective posture he took while speaking with Fox News earlier in the night.
“It’s just a point in time,” he told Bret Baier when asked if he might make changes to his administration. “It was just a point in time, Bret. It’s just a point in time. It’s the way it is. There was a mood in the air, I guess.”
There certainly was.
