Ex-GOP Leader Fears Trump Is Tearing Party Apart
(UnitedVoice.com) – Republicans went into the midterm elections with high expectations. For months, party leaders and pollsters predicted a Red wave. In 2021, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) even went so far as to predict the Democratic Party could lose 60+ seats in the races, claiming many lawmakers would lose because they were following Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). The congressman was wrong.
Not only did a Red wave never materialize, but Republicans failed to capture the Senate and might not even win the House. The fingerpointing within the GOP has commenced. While some lawmakers are blaming current congressional leadership for the failures, others are pointing the finger at former President Donald Trump.
Former Governor Speaks Out
On Sunday, November 13, The Hill reported former New York Governor George Pataki (R) spoke to Eric Shawn of Fox News about the midterms. He accused the former president of “tearing apart the Republican Party” in the wake of the election. Pataki flatly said, “The problem is Donald Trump.” He told the television anchor the 45th president “had his time.” The former governor believes the “sooner [Trump] goes away, the quicker” the GOP can recover.
Trump has repeatedly attacked the GOP in the wake of the election. He has started to tear down his potential 2024 competition, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R). He also accused McConnell of ruining the midterms, saying the party “despises” the Senate minority leader and “his otherwise lovely wife, Coco Chow!”
Pataki went on to say that when his party talks about the former president, they “lose,” claiming they “followed him off a cliff in 2018” and then “followed him to a loss […] in 2020.”
Others Express Similar Feelings
Pennsylvania was one of the states where the GOP lost big. Democrats flipped retiring Senator Pat Toomey’s (R-PA) seat Blue. Conservatives also lost the governor’s race and are incredibly close to losing Pennsylvania State House control for the first time in 12 years. Andy Reilly, a Pennsylvania Republican National Committee member, told POLITICO that many of Trump’s candidates didn’t “appeal to the general election audience.”
Maryland Governor Larry Hogan spoke to CNN’s “State of the Union” and placed the blame on the former POTUS as well. He told host Dana Bash the midterms were “the third election in a row that Donald Trump has cost” the GOP. He pointed out that the candidates “who tried to relitigate the 2020 election […] were almost universally rejected.”
Do you think some of the blame for the 2022 losses lies with Trump?
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