Source: Politics<\/p>\n
Donald Trump had a difficult night on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
All across the map, his endorsed candidates underperformed, losing elections or finishing with margins narrower than other Republicans. That no red wave materialized was interpreted as a repudiation of his hard-line politics. Questions quickly mounted about whether the party would \u2014 after three consecutive lackluster elections with him at the helm \u2014 move on from Trump as its standard bearer.<\/p>\n
But even amid the fallout and recriminations, Republicans critical of the former president were resigning themselves to another reality: they may be stuck with Trump anyway in 2024.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe tend to be slow learners,\u201d said Steve Duprey, the former Republican national committeeman from New Hampshire and longtime former state chair in the first-in-the-nation primary state.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are lessons here,\u201d he added. \u201cIf you look around the country, given the inflation, given the economic uncertainty, given the war in Ukraine, given the disastrous pullout from Afghanistan, it should have been a strong red wave. That it wasn\u2019t\u2026 is a great warning shot to the Republican Party that it is time for new ideas and definitely new messaging.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ever since the Access Hollywood tape and continuing through his loss in 2020 and the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, the conventional wisdom in Washington has often confused Trump\u2019s self-inflicted wounds with his undoing.<\/p>\n
Trump skeptical GOPers have grown wise to the pattern. While they viewed the former president as weaker than he was a day ago, they were reluctant on Wednesday to say they saw a long-term paradigm shift happening inside their party\u2019s tent.<\/p>\n
Mark Graul, a Republican strategist who worked on George W. Bush\u2019s 2004 campaign, said \u201cit can\u2019t possibly be more clear what a detriment Donald Trump is to Republican candidates.\u201d As for whether it would hurt Trump\u2019s prospects in a 2024 primary, however, Graul said, \u201cThat\u2019s the question I don\u2019t know the answer to. You would think it would, but I just, I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n
If Tuesday laid bare Trump\u2019s weakness and gave fodder to his detractors, it was not clear the Republican primary electorate was ready to notice it. On his social media platform, Truth Social, Trump\u2019s supporters overnight were elevating the former president\u2019s claim that he had a \u201cGREAT EVENING\u201d\u2014 a claim that relied on counting all his endorsements in non-competitive races as if they were major strokes of political ingenuity. In and around Mar-a-Lago, there was no sign that Trump had been chastened.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, a person close to Trump said, \u201cI think a lot of people are feeling a little bit better this morning than they did last night,\u201d stressing that numbers in the Arizona senate and gubernatorial races were \u201clooking pretty decent\u201d and Nevada, similarly, \u201clooking good.\u201d<\/p>\n