The Hidden Way That Election Denial Hurt Republicans

If the base believes it didn’t lose, then it won’t change.

As I type this newsletter, we still don’t know the ultimate balance of power in the House or the Senate. According to The New York Times’ legendary needle, Republicans are highly likely to narrowly take the House, and Democrats are likely to narrowly retain the Senate. But this much we do know—this was not the outcome that virtually any pundit or political professional expected (though the polling was relatively accurate). It’s the worst showing by an opposition party in the midterms since Democrats lost House seats to Republicans in 2002.

As with any complex event, we should reject monocausal explanations. Exit polls can give us part of the answer. For example, they indicate that abortion was the top issue for 27 percent of voters (only inflation was more important), and 76 percent of voters who listed abortion as the top issue voted Democratic.

We also know that the Democrats repeatedly emphasized that “democracy was on the ballot,” and every Republican gubernatorial candidate who refused to say they would have certified Joe Biden’s 2020 election lost, with the possible exception of Arizona’s Kari Lake (her race is still too close to call).

So, was that the Democrats’ formula? Dobbs and democracy? It was certainly the focus of their messaging, and Occam’s razor would indicate that the messaging worked. Surging Republican concern over inflation and crime met surging Democratic concern over elections and abortion, and Democratic concerns often prevailed.

But that’s not the whole story. There’s an additional cost to Republican election denial—if the party doesn’t believe it lost, it won’t change its message or its messengers. Or, as I said on Twitter yesterday, “One of the consequences of election denial was MAGA's simple refusal to understand the will of the voters.”

To understand the psychology of the GOP, one has to understand the core narrative of Trumpism. Before Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton, MAGA says, the GOP was a party of losers. It lost to Obama in 2008, it lost again in 2012, and it would have lost to Clinton in 2016 but for Trump. Establishment conservatives, according to this narrative, hadn’t “conserved” anything. Only Trump could save the republic.

The narrative never made sense. The Republican Party won control of the House and the Senate in the Obama era. It gained hundreds of state House seats. It controlled a majority of state governments. Yes, Trump won in 2016, but by the narrowest of margins. He beat an unpopular Democrat, but with a lower percentage of the popular vote than Mitt Romney’s.

Trump claimed a majority. He claimed a mandate. He had neither.

Then what happened? The Trump movement proceeded to lose control of each elected branch of government faster than any president since Herbert Hoover. But there was always an excuse. There was always a way to deny the obvious.

What about the Democratic House wave in 2018? That was nothing but a normal midterm result, plus the Republicans actually increased their Senate majority. The Senate victory is what mattered. It proved that Trump was no fluke.

The 2020 election, however, was a different story entirely. Biden won more electoral votes than Trump won in 2016. He beat Trump by more than 7 million popular votes.

That should have been the Republican wake-up call. Trump lost the White House, Republicans lost the Senate, and even the reliably red Arizona and Georgia turned blue. There it was, the worst electoral performance by either party since Hoover’s decisive loss in 1932.

But no. It’s not a true defeat if the election was stolen. If the election was stolen, the MAGA movement doesn’t have to abandon its triumphalism. If the election was stolen, the MAGA movement doesn’t have to alter its ethos. The answer to stolen elections is electoral reform, not different kinds of candidates. So the Trumpist faction of the Republican Party felt free to cling to Trump, double down on Trump endorsements, and ride the Trump Train once again.

This is aberrational political behavior. One-term presidents are not seen as models for political success. The Democratic Party abandoned Jimmy Carter after 1980, and the Republicans turned away from George H. W. Bush after 1992. They may have remained respected elder statesmen, but they were not kingmakers. They couldn’t intimidate a party eager to move on.

But questioning Trump has proved hard for Republicans. It’s difficult to convey how much his base believes that Trump is the indispensable man. Parts of the Christian base are convinced he has a divine destiny to save the nation. His most devoted secular fans are religious in their devotion to the cult of Trump. It’s difficult to convey how much that cult hates the old Republican establishment.

For the first time in my political life, I encountered a Republican Party that despised its internal critics so much that it didn’t want them in the GOP. From top to bottom, Trump’s party seemed to delight in pushing people out. Last night, Trump actually celebrated Republican Joe O’Dea’s election loss to Colorado Democratic Senator Michael Bennet. Trump only wants the Republicans who serve him.

The question is whether that dynamic persists, especially in the face of Ron DeSantis’s overwhelming victory in Florida. In 2020, Trump won the state by three points. In 2022, DeSantis won by 19. In 2020, Trump lost Florida’s Hispanic vote by seven points. In 2022, DeSantis won Hispanics by 15. The message is clear. The GOP could have a new champion. It could latch itself to a new winner. But for the party to embrace a new victor, it has to finally face the truth it has refused to see. After his surprise upset in 2016, Donald Trump has done nothing but lose.