Metro Voice News Celebrating Faith, Family & Community
It’s time to bury the Republican Party after coming up short in the midterm elections, Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley said. “The old party is dead,” he said. “Time to bury it. Build something new.”
After anticipating a red wave, the GOP did not deliver expected returns in many House and Senate races. As of the latest results, the GOP is projected to barely capture the House and the Democrats will retain control of the Senate using Vice President Kamala Harris as a tie-breaker. The balance of power in the Senate was solidified after Democratic candidate Catherine Cortez Masto announced victory against former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt on Saturday.
Hawley directly blamed the party leaders for the poor performance, adding that the election strategy “was a pretty serious mistake”. Donald Trump and other senior figures have been facing growing flak from within the party following last Tuesday’s election, with more GOP members turning their backs on the former president.
“I did not agree with failing to have any kind of an agenda to run on in these midterms,” Hawley said. “I did not agree with the decision to bad-mouth our candidates in the middle of the campaign, I did not agree with the decision to leave Blake Masters for dead in Arizona.”
Members of the pro-Trump House Freedom Caucus are attempting to disrupt House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy’s bid to become speaker of the House. They have started drafting a list of conditions, putting McCarthy in a precarious position given that he needs to receive 218 votes to assume it.
Infighting among Republican leadership has ensued since the midterm bust. Many Trump-endorsed candidates lost their races or garnered smaller winning margins than more moderate Republicans, indicating that many voters wanted a departure from the MAGA movement. Many Republicans are arguing that the outcome was a rejection of Trump’s involvement and influence in the GOP. More concrete evidence of that lies in Gov. Ron DeSantis’s slam dunk reelection in Florida, where he dominated his opponent among many demographics and groups thought to be Democratic blocs, such as Hispanics.
–Dwight Widaman | Metro Voice
