Trump blames pro-life Republicans for midterm losses

January 3, 2023

Former President Donald Trump still refuses to accept any blame for Republicans' poor performances in the 2022 midterms, instead shifting the blame onto a new group in his latest TruthSocial post: pro-life Republicans.

Trump argued that pro-lifers' refusal to accept any exceptions to abortion bans in some states made them look like extremists and caused them to lose their races.

"It wasn't my fault that the Republicans didn't live up to expectations in the midterms," Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. "It was the ‘abortion issue,’ poorly handled by many Republicans, especially those that firmly insisted on No Exceptions, even in the case of rape, incest or life of the mother, that lost large numbers of voters."

"Also, the people that pushed so hard, for decades, against abortion, got their wish from the U.S. Supreme Court, and just plain disappeared, not to be seen again," he added.

While many of Trump's endorsed candidates won their races, many of the ones in key, close contests lost, including Herschel Walker in Georgia, Kari Lake in Arizona, and Dr. Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania.

It isn't clear whether Trump's endorsement caused any of the losses, but many Republicans have come to feel that it didn't help them as much as it should have, and that Trump's strength as the erstwhile leader of the GOP has weakened. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis seems to be Trump's main competition, beating him handily in a hypothetical primary matchup in a few recent polls even though he hasn't formally announced his candidacy yet.