On the eve of an election that threatened to upend his presidency, Donald Trump went to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, where he had overseen a multimillion-dollar renovation that went awry when its new coating peeled and algae turned the water green. Aides hoped the President would focus on the concerns weighing on ordinary Americans: soaring gas prices, expensive groceries, a new war in the Middle East. Instead, Trump spent much of his 53-minute speech talking about construction projects rather than the struggles of the nation he had been elected to serve.
It was a bewildering capstone to a strange campaign. Allies marveled at Trump’s inability to stay on message as he crisscrossed the country. He boasted that oil companies were making a fortune as Americans struggled with energy costs.
He claimed New Yorkers were no longer allowed to call their mothers “mom,” suggested renaming New Mexico “New America,” and repeatedly mimicked a Democratic Senate candidate vomiting at the sight of meat. Time and again, he veered into bizarre digressions about men's physiques. As one Trump aide put: “It’s hard to reach voters who can’t afford gas when your candidate keeps talking about Arnold Palmer’s endowment and Jon Husted’s ass.” The scale of the Democrats’ victory was staggering.
They seized control of both the House and Senate with ease. They captured governorships and Senate seats by commanding margins in traditionally Republican states, and prevailed in House districts gerrymandered to favor the GOP. The wipeout was a clear repudiation of Trump.
Across the country, the President’s handpicked candidates went down to resounding defeats, including scandal-plagued Ken Paxton in Texas and Darlene Graham, the sister of the late Senator Lindsey Graham, in South Carolina—nominees he had elevated over the objections of party leaders who believed other Republicans stood a better chance. By night's end, Trump acknowledged the opposition's victory and recognized that the war in Iran was a factor in his loss. "We actually have the greatest economy," Trump told Fox News.
"But because of the gasoline prices people don't see it as much as they would have without it. And the gasoline was caused by Iran." Trump’s confidantes often remarked that he cared little about the outcome of the midterms. He regarded his party's loss of seats in Congress as an inescapable historical pattern.
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