GOP Loser Compares Himself to Jesus to Explain Election Defeat
“Jesus Christ could have run and would have lost,” the defeated congressman said.
Rep. Mike Lawler has a rather extraordinary explanation for his election defeat: his congressional seat was so unwinnable that even Jesus Christ could not have saved it.
The New York Republican lost his re-election bid to Democrat Cait Conley in Tuesday’s midterm elections, part of a sweeping Democratic wave that wrested control of both chambers of Congress from Republicans.
Speaking to CNN chief congressional correspondent Manu Raju on Wednesday, Lawler insisted he had done everything possible to hold onto his seat, only to watch his campaign collapse.
Rep. Mike Lawler think his seat was a lost cause.
Anna Rose Layden/REUTERS
Raju said Lawler told him that he “ran as good a campaign as he possibly could” but that “the bottom fell out.”
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Pressed for more details, Lawler offered a decidedly biblical assessment of his chances.
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“And when I asked him more about that, he said, ‘Jesus Christ could have run and would have lost,’” Raju recalled.
Lawler was one of three Republicans defending seats in districts Kamala Harris carried in 2024, making his re-election prospects particularly precarious as Democrats made sweeping gains across the country.
His defeat was among a string of Republican losses that left the party scrambling for answers and looking for someone to blame.
“On the Republican side, it’s a reckoning. It’s a blame game of sorts about what exactly went wrong,” Raju told Anderson Cooper.
It comes as Tuesday night saw the Democrats flip a string of Republican strongholds to reclaim control of Congress in a historic rebuke for Trump’s Republican Party.
That includes Texas, Kansas, Ohio, Georgia, and South Carolina.
The explanations for the losses have varied, with some Republicans pointing directly to President Donald Trump and his handling of the economy.
The president’s war with Iran, which has sent energy prices soaring, has also drawn criticism from within his own party, including Vice President JD Vance.
Outgoing Rep. Don Bacon, whose district in Nebraska turned blue, told Raju that the results amounted to “a referendum on President Trump.”
Florida Rep. Greg Steube offered a different diagnosis, blaming Republican leadership for “kneeling down to moderates within their own party and not standing firm to their principles.”
Rep. Marlin Stutzman, who held onto his Indiana seat, suggested the consequences should extend to the White House.
Some Republicans think White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth should be fired for their part in the midterms loss.
AL DRAGO/Al Drago/Pool/Reuters
Raju reported that Stutzman declared “someone at the White House should be fired,” specifically pointing to Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller.
“Others have pointed the finger at Pete Hegseth,” Raju added.
The defense secretary is facing a potential impeachment vote over his handling of Trump’s war with Iran. Rep. Thomas Massie plans to force a vote when lawmakers return to Washington, with multiple Republican sources telling CNN they expect the measure to pass.
Trump, meanwhile, has blamed his absence from the ballot for the Republican rout.
“I wasn’t on the ticket, and because I wasn’t on the ticket, we couldn’t get enough people out to vote,” he told The New York Times.
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