The US midterm elections saw a lot of winners, losers; which is which?
4 Min Read
Biden and DeSantis are on the rise, but Donald Trump and some of the Republican Party's more insane candidates have failed.
-
President Donald Trump speaks during the first presidential debate against Joe Biden in Cleveland, 18/10/2020 (Getty Images)
The US midterm elections could be summed up as one phrase, "Not as bad as Democrats feared."
Republicans won big in Florida, and the party remains on track to take the House, but candidates endorsed by former President Donald Trump flopped elsewhere, and reproductive rights supporters won big.
Read next: Trump midterm elections remarks: Who has ever done better than that?
As Trump licks his wounds after being compared to an egg on legs by a Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper, and Democrats rejoice over avoiding a predicted "red wave", who fared well and who fared poorly?
US President Joe Biden; a win
Prior to last Tuesday's elections, a lot of discussions centered on how Biden might harm the Democratic candidates. Republicans ran advertisements linking their rivals to Biden across the nation in the hopes that the unpopular President would turn off voters.
Democrats consistently outperformed expectations, so it was a failure. Although Biden continues to be extremely unpopular, with his approval rating falling to 39% this week in a Reuters poll, his party doesn't appear to be suffering as a result.
The results forced Biden to repeat his recent assertions to run for a second term as president in two years’ time.
Republican Florida governor Ron DeSantis; a win
The right-wing media hailed Ron DeSantis as the Republican Party's future; on Wednesday morning, and the New York Post referred to him as the party's "DeFuture".
DeSantis, a Republican who is anti-immigrant and anti-abortion, is seen as a more palatable, less hysterical version of Donald Trump. He has been tight-lipped about running for president in 2024, but if DeSantis does decide to run, reports suggest that this is a good place to start.
Democrat Senate candidate John Fetterman; a win
Three years ago, John Fetterman was the mayor of Braddock, a town of fewer than 2,000 people. He was elected to the United States Senate on Tuesday and will represent 13 million Pennsylvanians.
It's been an incredible rise, made all the more remarkable by Fetterman's stroke just days before the Democratic primary in May.
Donald Trump; a loss
The one-term, twice-impeached President had a shocking evening, as many of his endorsed candidates failed in key races across the country one after the other.
The fact that many of Trump's Republican supporters were defeated isn't the only thing that will sting. Several of Trump's appointees underperformed in states where Republicans who were not anointed by Trump triumphed, including New Hampshire and Georgia.
Read next: Republicans took a loss, Trump's much to blame for it
To top it off, Rupert Murdoch appears to have turned against Trump. The New York Post, a Murdoch-owned tabloid, mocked up an image of Trump as Humpty Dumpty on Thursday.
No 'red wave'
With the not-very-popular Democratic President, soaring inflation, high gas prices, and widespread economic doom and gloom, Republicans were supposed to sweep through Congress in a "red wave". They didn't do it.
With votes still being counted in some states on Friday, the Republican Party remained short of a majority in the House and Senate, as Democrats outperformed expectations across the country.
There were a couple of exceptions. In Florida, both DeSantis and the state's incumbent senator, Marco Rubio, cruised to victory, and Republicans thrived in state-level races as well. According to the Tampa Bay Times, it was "an electoral catastrophe for Democrats."
Read next: No 'Red Wave' may reflect limited Republican strategy: Experts
Furthermore, in Pennsylvania, Doug Mastriano, a Christian nationalist state senator who paid for buses to transport people to what became the January 6 insurgency and attempted to overturn the 2020 election results, was defeated in the governor's race.
Matthew DePerno, a fellow election conspiracy theorist who called Democrats "radical, cultural Marxists," was defeated in his bid to become Michigan's attorney general, and his ideological counterpart Kristina Karamo was defeated in her bid to become secretary of state.
A Republican, Tina Forte, who attended the January 6 rally and has dabbled in QAnon conspiracy theories, was defeated in her bid to defeat Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York.
Stay updated: US Midterm Elections 2022
