Election shows Trump as albatross around GOP's neck

By Jamelle Bouie / The New York Times

As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump has been a phenomenally effective vote-winner, capable of turning out millions of otherwise infrequent voters to deliver the White House and Congress to the Republican Party. But as president, Trump has been an albatross around the neck of his party.

Consider his record as party leader. In the 2017 elections, Republicans suffered sharp defeats in the Virginia and New Jersey governor’s races, with Virginia Democrats sweeping all three statewide offices and winning a majority in the state General Assembly. The following year, in the 2018 midterm elections, Democrats won a landslide victory in the House of Representatives, their largest since 2006. Trump came close to victory in the 2020 presidential election but may have contributed to the Republican Party’s defeat in the Georgia Senate runoff election, handing the Democratic Party full control of Washington for the first time since 2011.

Even 2022, a midterm under President Joe Biden, was less successful than it could have been for the Republican Party because of Trump’s influence in the battle for the Senate, where voters rejected MAGA-aligned candidates in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania. With the 2024 presidential election came another strong Trump performance as he brought out the voters who support him and him alone.

Tuesday was the first major election since Trump entered the White House for a second term. And although voters across Virginia, New Jersey and New York City were most concerned with the particulars of their respective states and localities, there was no question that this was also a chance to register their discontent in a way that might send a message to Washington and the rest of America.

https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/bouie-election-shows-trump-as-albatross-around-gops-neck/