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Is Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis the Republican leader of the future? That’s the question on a lot of minds after Republicans suffered a disappointing night on Tuesday (which Donald Trump helped create by virtue of recruiting and endorsing awful MAGA candidates).
Going into the midterms, I assumed Republicans would perform well enough to prevent them from having to do any soul-searching or make any changes. This has been the pattern: Trump’s surprise victory in 2016 taught Republicans that they didn’t have to make any changes, the 2018 midterm losses could be dismissed as the historical norm for the party in power, and Trump’s 2020 loss couldn’t possibly be instructive, since he actually won the election. (He did not win the election, but he did try to steal it after he lost.)
Tuesday night’s midterm results make it much harder for Republicans to pretend that they are on the right track.