Wall Street Journal labels Trump biggest Republican ‘loser’

The Wall Street Journal editorial board this week put the blame for Republican losses in the midterms at the feet of former President Trump, calling him the GOP’s “biggest loser.” 

The board said in an editorial published Wednesday that Trump-style Republican candidates lost in races that were “clearly” winnable, but the defeats might be what the Republican Party needs to see before the 2024 presidential election. 

“What will Democrats do when Donald Trump isn’t around to lose elections? We have to wonder because on Tuesday Democrats succeeded again in making the former President a central campaign issue, and Mr. Trump helped them do it,” the board said.

Republicans were hoping for a red wave to retake control of both chambers of Congress, but Democrats outperformed the polls in many races. The GOP will likely win a narrow majority of the House, while which party will control the Senate is uncertain.

The board also criticized Trump for attacking other Republicans at a rally ahead of the midterms in an editorial published this past weekend. 

The board pointed to several Senate races where Trump-backed candidates underperformed. 

Don Bolduc lost the New Hampshire Senate race to incumbent Sen. Maggie Hassan (D) by about 8 points, according to most recent estimates, but Gov. Chris Sununu (R), who has been critical of Trump, won reelection by 16 points. 

The board said businessman David McCormick would have been a better candidate to face Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D) in the state’s Senate race. But McCormick would not entertain Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen, so Trump endorsed a weaker candidate in Mehmet Oz, who lost to Fetterman, the board said. 

The board said Trump could have stayed mostly quiet in the last few weeks of the election cycle except to spend money for Republican candidates, but he did the opposite and “played into Democratic hands.”

It said Trump’s rally with Oz last week could have hurt the Senate candidate with suburban voters who voted against Trump in 2020. 

“Since his unlikely victory in 2016 against the widely disliked Hillary Clinton, Mr. Trump has a perfect record of electoral defeat,” the board said. 

It said Republicans faced heavy losses in the 2018 midterms, then Trump lost reelection in 2020, then sabotaged two key Senate runoffs in Georgia in 2021 and has botched the 2022 midterms. It said he had successes as president, but he has sent the party into one “political fiasco” after another. 

Trump is expected to announce a third bid for the presidency next week and has been seen as the front-runner for the Republican nomination.