Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) says former President Trump’s political power is “weakening” after his endorsed candidate’s poor performance in the midterm elections. and vowed to find a “quality” candidate for the 2024 Senate elections.
In an interview with NBC News published Friday, McConnell said, “Here’s what I think has changed: I think the former president’s political clout has decreased.
Despite predictions of a “red wave” in this November’s midterm elections, Republicans lost their seats in the Senate and secured only a small majority in the House. Since then, many Republicans have criticized Trump and the far-right candidate he supports.
“We lost the support we needed among independents and moderate Republicans,” McConnell told NBC. Related to our view was that we are messy and prone to chaos.”
“Strangely, even though a subset of voters did not approve of President Biden, they were not able to gain enough credibility to get the majority they needed,” he continued.
McConnell initially expressed concern in August about the Republican party’s chances of winning the Senate, pointing to the problem of “candidate quality” by explicitly referring to the extreme candidates Trump favors.
“I think the chances of the House flipping are probably higher than the Senate,” McConnell warned at an event in his home state of Kentucky in mid-August. They are spread across the state.The quality of the candidates has a lot to do with the outcome.”
Reflecting on the midterm elections, McConnell said he and the Republican super PAC, the Senate Leadership Fund, had concluded that “we need to play with the cards we’ve been dealt.”
In some states, McConnell said, “Trump’s support was huge. We could have spent a lot of money and tried to come up with another candidate, and we might not have succeeded.” there is,” he said.
But the Senate Minority Leader said Republicans were “less inclined to accept any card that could be dealt to us” in 2024 because the former president’s political power is waning. .
“We can do a better job with less potential interference,” he added. “The former president may have other things to do.”