José López Zamorano
La Red Hispana
One by one, the candidates supported by Donald Trump were mostly defeated by the vote of the citizens on Tuesday, November 8. Meet the big losers of the US elections.
Kari Lake and Blake Masters in Arizona, Adam Laxalt and Jim Marchant in Nevada, Douglas Mastriano and Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, Thudor Nixon and Kristina Karamo in Michigan, Dan Cox in Maryland, Geoff Diehl in Massachusetts, and many more undesirable candidates.
Most had in common their adherence to The Big Lie of the alleged 2020 electoral fraud and, if they had won, many of them would have become part of the army of deniers placed in key positions to certify the 2024 presidential elections.
It’s true that some candidates who accepted Trump’s endorsement, like JD Vance in Ohio or Monica de la Cruz in Texas, won their races, as did several members of the House Freedom Caucus, but they were the exception rather than the rule: In the eyes of all, including many of the Republicans themselves, Trump was a toxic factor for the conservative movement.
The anticipated “red wave” didn’t even make it into a bucket of cold water: Democrats defied history, kept the Senate and cut losses in the House.
In contrast, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis emerged as a clear winner in the elections, as he managed to defeat former Governor Charlie Crist by almost 20 percentage points. At 44, he can present himself as the future of the conservative movement.
A poll conducted by the Texas Republican Party after the election showed that DeSantis, not Trump, is the favorite among conservative Texans to seek the presidency in 2024.
So devalued was the Trump brand, that it was the Republicans themselves who asked the former president to postpone his plans to announce his new Presidential candidacy and do so until after the special elections in Georgia, on December 6, but the former president could not hold the urge.
Let’s remember: Trump lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton in 2016, lost seats in the 2018 midterm elections, and lost by more than 7 million votes to Joe Biden in 2020.
However, a new defeat for Trump in 2024 does not imply an end to Trumpism. After all, politicians like DeSantis in Florida or Gregg Abbott in Texas represent Trumpism without Trump, related by their hardline immigration policies and eagerness to rule across division and political polarization.
But as we expressed in this space even before voting day, the real winners of the elections were the millions of citizens who voted by mail or went to the polls to say “NO” to anti-democratic candidates.
Indeed, as President Biden summed it up: Tuesday, November 8, was a great day for democracy.