As midterm results showed Republicans suffering sweeping losses, President Donald Trump argued that the party had struggled to turn out voters because he was not on the ballot. He made the claim in an interview with The New York Times on Tuesday night, before polls had closed in some parts of the country.
Republicans pushed back, blaming the losses—and the party’s loss of control of both the House and Senate—on decisions Trump made in the year before the election. They cited his tariff policies, the unpopular war in Iran and the resulting rise in prices, as well as his support for candidates they considered weak.
Some Republicans also criticized Trump’s campaign appearances in the final weeks. Michigan Republican strategist Jason Roe said the president had given voters reasons to oppose him and called Trump’s explanation for the results “ridiculous.” Roe described the president as “the engineer of the Republican collapse.”
Sources: The New York Times Politics.