US midterms: DeSantis steals limelight from Trump

Donald Trump tried to grab the political spotlight heading into Tuesday’s midterm elections, with a spate of rallies, interviews and social media posts in which he teased another bid for the White House and lashed out at his political rivals.

But hours after the polls closed on Tuesday night, all eyes were on the man seen as most likely to challenge him for the Republican Party’s nomination for president in 2024: Ron DeSantis.

DeSantis, the 44-year-old governor of Florida, stormed to victory on Tuesday, with the Associated Press calling his win over Democrat Charlie Crist just an hour after the polls closed. With 96 per cent of precincts reporting, DeSantis led Crist by a 20-point margin, a significant improvement on the three-point margin Trump beat Joe Biden by in the state just two years ago.

At an election night party in Tampa, DeSantis claimed a “historic, landslide victory” as he was re-elected for another four-year term and said he looked “forward to the road ahead”.

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DeSantis has not said whether he will seek his party’s nomination for president. But he broke into a smile on Tuesday night as the crowd chanted “two more years” in a plea for him to cut his governorship short and run for higher office.

“We have accomplished more than anybody thought possible four years ago,” DeSantis said. “But we have got so much more to do, and I have only begun to fight.”

DeSantis’s sweeping victory came just hours after Trump (76), appeared to threaten the Republican governor, warning that the Florida governor could “hurt himself very badly” if he entered the race.

“I would tell you things about him that won’t be very flattering,” Trump said of DeSantis, or “DeSanctimonious”, as he has started to nickname him in recent days. “I know more about him than anybody, other than, perhaps, his wife.”

[ US midterm elections: Democrats defy expectations ]

Trump has made no secret of his desire to run for president in 2024, though he has so far stopped short of formally announcing his candidacy, in part at the urging of advisers and Republican congressional leaders who had asked him to delay any declaration until after the midterms.

He also positioned himself as a significant force in the early stages of this midterm election cycle, endorsing more than 300 Republican candidates, and was seen as a decisive factor in primary elections held earlier in the year.

That included backing US Senate candidates in crucial battleground states, such as celebrity TV doctor Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, Hillbilly Elegy author JD Vance in Ohio and former American football star Herschel Walker in Georgia.

However, by the early hours of Wednesday morning, there were indications that some Trump-backed candidates had struggled compared with more moderate Republican contenders.

For example, in Ohio, though Vance eked out a narrow victory in the Senate, incumbent Republican and Trump critic Mike DeWine beat his Democratic challenger in the governor’s race, Nan Whaley, by a 26-point margin, with 92 per cent of precincts having reported.

In Pennsylvania, while the Senate race hung in the balance, Trump’s pick for governor, Doug Mastriano, lost by a wide margin to Democrat Josh Shapiro. In New Hampshire, the moderate Republican incumbent governor Chris Sununu cruised to re-election while the Democratic incumbent senator Maggie Hassan defeated her Trump-endorsed Republican challenger, Don Bolduc.

[ Five key takeaways from the midterm elections ]

As results rolled in on Tuesday night, Trump was uncharacteristically muted at an election night party he hosted at his Mar-a-Lago resort, giving a brief speech in which he congratulated a handful of candidates whom he had endorsed who had easily won their races, including Marco Rubio, the Republican senator in Florida.

“This has been a very exciting night,” Trump said in measured tones, “and we have some races that are hot and heavy.”

It was a far cry from the bullishness the former president had displayed at a rally in Dayton, Ohio, the previous night, when he teased – yet again – that he would soon announce another White House bid.

Trump’s declaration that he would make a “very big announcement” next week at Mar-a-Lago sent the strongest signal so far that he will soon attempt to reassert himself as the dominant figure in Republican politics.

While no national Republican has formally declared they are running for president, Trump is widely seen as the front-runner for the party’s nomination if he runs again in 2024.

The latest RealClearPolitics polling average shows he is the favourite among about half of the party’s grassroots voters, followed by DeSantis, who claims the support of just shy of 21 per cent of Republicans.

Trump’s former vice-president, Mike Pence, is on 7.5 points, followed by Texas senator Ted Cruz and former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, both on slightly under 3 points, according to the polling average.

“In 2024, most importantly, we are going to take back our magnificent White House,” Trump told the crowd in Dayton on Monday.

Even if the former president has been dealt a blow by the results of the midterm elections, on Tuesday night he stood resolutely behind his record.

When asked in an interview to what extent the Republican results in the midterms should be attributed to him, Trump said: “Well, I think if they win, I should get all the credit, and if they lose, I should not be blamed at all.

“But it will probably be just the opposite,” he added, telling News Nation: “Usually what would happen is, when they do well, I won’t be given any credit, and if they do badly, they will blame everything on me.” – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2022