Aftershocks of GOP’s midterm election disappointments reach RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel’s office in Washington, DC. (Screenshot: MSNBC)
Aftershocks of GOP’s midterm election disappointments reach RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel’s office in Washington, DC.
The results of the election for the U.S. House of Representatives were not what most people had hoped for. The results were an anti-Democratic wave, with the Democrats taking the House from Republicans by a net of 50 seats.
But the GOP won the Senate too, thanks in no small part to the support of conservative voters. They also won back the governor’s mansion in Texas, which had been in Republican hands for nearly a decade.
But the final results of that election also showed a serious problem for the party: it lost many of its conservative voters to the Democrats.
The election was a major disappointment for the Republican establishment, after a four-year period in which they were the ascendant party in Washington. But it was a greater disappointment for the conservative leaders of the party, like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), who had taken major steps to advance the party’s traditional priorities on taxes and fiscal responsibility.
In order to correct that, the GOP is preparing for the 2020 presidential election with a new, more pro-Trump agenda that promises to win more voters in those races.
“It’s an opportunity for us to get back on the map, and we are going to make sure we’re out there with a message to the American people. It’s also going to be essential to a successful Republican campaign in 2020,” said Ryan during a press conference in Washington on Thursday. “We’re going to make it a defining year for the party.”
Republicans who had been pushing for an agenda that reflected their view on America saw their efforts fall flat during the election. This was particularly bad for the party’s candidates – Republicans who were running