In the aftermath of the GOP’s lackluster midterm results, election analysts have blamed Republican leadership across the board for running a campaign that lacked a central theme.
They also contrasted the results with the strong election for Republicans in Florida, as a new poll shows former President Donald Trump struggling as his rival, Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis surges.
In a year that saw expectations of a GOP majority soar in the final weeks of the election, Republicans are on the cusp of claiming a majority in the House after a week of vote counting in highly-contested races across the country.
And in another blow to mainstream media polling, the results defied the expectations of a big GOP victory created by pollsters who have struggled in recent years to adequately project the results of the voting.
The experts who spoke with the Epoch Times contrasted the results with Florida where Republican Governor Ron DeSantis and U.S. Senator Marco Rubio ran highly disciplined races that told voters what they stood for and what they would do.
The result was that DeSantis and Rubio both won easy victories, against former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist and Rep. Val Deming (D-Fla.) respectively, nearly breaking 60 percent of the vote apiece, despite being opposed by veteran campaigners, the experts said.
DeSantis Surges Among Primary Voters
A new poll conducted by WPA Intelligence on behalf of the conservative organization Club for Growth showed DeSantis leading Trump in key states in a would-be presidential race in 2024.The survey conducted from Nov. 11 to Nov. 13 showed DeSantis up 11 points amongst Iowa caucus-goers for the 2024 Republican nomination for president, after Florida’s governor trailed Trump by 15 points in August.
In New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary, DeSantis holds a lead of 15 points on Trump after being tied with the former president in August.
The poll also shows DeSantis with big leads in key states of Florida (+26 percent) and Georgia (+20 percent) over Trump in a two-man presidential tilt for the nomination.
Club for Growth’s vice president of communications Joe Kildea told The Epoch Times that DeSantis is even beating Trump amongst the most conservative primary voters, pointing to data released exclusively to The Epoch Times.
Amongst those defined in the survey as most conservative, DeSantis is up eight points in Iowa, two points in New Hampshire, 14 points in Florida, and two points in Georgia.
“He’s also winning somewhat conservatives and moderates in every state by double digits,” said Kildea about DeSantis
One expert said the results of the election did not represent an embrace of Democrat policies, saying that other than Trump, Biden was also a loser in the end.
“The biggest losers Tuesday night were Trump and Biden,” said Tony Marsh, a media consultant with Savanna Communications.
Mainstream Media Polling Still Struggling
The results of the midterms ended up differently than expected for some as polls in the final weeks projected substantial, if not massive, victories for Republicans, said Keith Naughton, a political consultant at Silent Majority Partners, who closely watches polling.“They [the pollsters] probably changed their samples, and cleaned up their sampling from the last time. I don’t think they were that far off, but maybe they were a little bit generous with the GOP,” said Naughton about this year’s polling errors.
Another expert said that in addition to the poor polling, the GOP did a bad job refining their message, trying to depend solely on Biden’s unpopularity, rather than putting forward a positive program outlining what the Republican Party would actually do.
“I just thought the GOP message was missing the mark, and I said this during the campaign, that there wasn’t enough on what they’re doing for people as opposed to saying ‘we’re not the Democrats’,” pollster Jim Ellis of Ellis Insights told The Epoch Times.
Ellis contrasted this with what DeSantis did in Florida.
“Look at DeSantis and his campaigns in Florida. What did DeSantis and [Sen. Marco] Rubio do differently than everybody else? They told people what they will do for them. The DeSantis camp was great at that. They were using people from around the state who were talking about how he’s made their lives better. Didn’t hear that type of thing from any other GOP candidates,” added Ellis.
A Battle of Bad Choices
Naughton said that the loss in Pennsylvania’s open Senate race was particularly bitter because it was difficult to find a worse candidate than the Democrats did in John Fetterman, who was ultimately elected over Republican nominee Dr. Mehmet Oz.“John Fetterman is an embarrassment. And the Republicans responded with a carpetbagger, who’s only half-American, who’s got dual citizenship and has never run for office before?” said Naughton.
The analyst called Oz a “snooty TV personality,” adding that he underperformed for the GOP in deeply conservative counties because he didn’t have the hometown bona fides required to win in Pennsylvania.
Data shared exclusively with The Epoch Times by Impact Social, a social media research firm, showed that while Trump got a boost amongst undecided, independents, and other voters defined as swing voters after the early August raid by the FBI at Mar-a-Lago, by the beginning of September, that sympathy bounce had faded.
Impact Social had predicted before the election that potentially only a GOP victory could stem the Trump slide among swing voters.
“The elections create excitement among right leaning swing voters as the chance to take control of one or both Houses beckons,” said an early November analysis by Impact Social.
“This may be Trump’s only hope of getting the attention of swing voters away from the investigations and begin reestablishing himself as a president in waiting,” it added.
But Oz and other candidates supported by Trump didn’t help carry a message that offered people hope that their lives were going to get better after two years of Democrat rule under Biden, said Marsh.
“People just want to be able to take care of their families and control their own futures,” he said.
Strong Performance in Florida
When contrasted with the results from Florida, it gives added impetus to the talk that Trump should give way to DeSantis in the Republican presidential sweepstakes, said one military veteran who wants DeSantis to run.“You don’t go from almost having a runoff [for governor as DeSantis did] in 2018 to winning by 20 points, by demographic changes alone statewide,” Bob Carry, a retired U.S. Navy Captain, who heads up the veterans’ effort at Ready For Ron, a political committee encouraging DeSantis to run for president in 2024, told The Epoch Times.
“You do it by appealing to a broad cross-section of the electorate, and Ron DeSantis gets it done,” he added.
But this should not be a go-ahead to attack Trump, cautioned one politician from Colorado who saw that strategy backfire in his own state.
“DeSantis has to draw a fine line. Here in Colorado, beating up Trump didn’t help Republican [Senate] candidate Joe O’Dea defeat an unpopular incumbent Democrat Michael Bennet in one of the best political environments I’ve ever seen for conservatives,” said Republican Mark Baisley, a newly elected Colorado state Senator, who likes both Trump and DeSantis.
Trump on Nov. 15 formally announced his bid for the White House.
Baisley, 67, just completed four years serving in the Colorado House as a state representative.
“If sometimes voters are offended by Trump’s Manhattan personality, they certainly liked many of his policies,” he said.
O’Dea, a political newcomer, sought to woo voters in deep-blue Colorado by actively campaigning against former President Trump.
The TV appearance seemed to prompt Trump’s wrath.
The former president responded by calling O’Dea a “RINO” and “stupid” on his Truth Social platform.
For Marsh, the results of the election are clear in both the votes and how candidates spent their money, as voters rejected Biden, his progressives agenda, and Trump.
“The winning Democrats spent millions of dollars to convince voters they were more moderate than their voting records, and the winning Republicans were the ones who were less Trumpy,” Marsh said.
“If that doesn’t tell the leaders of each party what’s wrong and how to fix it, there’s not much hope for them or their party,” he added.
