POLITICAL POISON

Trump Humiliated by Reality Check Everywhere He Campaigned

The president’s attempt to play political savior made matters worse for the candidates he backed.

President Donald Trump’s cross-country push to drag struggling Republicans across the midterm finish line has backfired spectacularly.

Republicans lost their grip on both chambers of Congress on Tuesday as GOP candidates Trump had spent weeks campaigning for significantly underperformed past election results.

In Iowa, the 80-year-old president held two rallies in the month leading up to the election to stump for Republicans on the ballot.

But nearly every one of them lost.

Senate candidate Ashley Hinson, who shared the stage with Trump at a rally in Dubuque, Iowa, on Sunday, lost to Democrat Josh Turek by 4 points. Retiring GOP Sen. Joni Ernst had won the state by more than 6 points in 2020.

GOP Rep. Zach Nunn, whom Trump called a “great guy” on Sunday, lost his seat to a Democratic challenger by more than 6 points, a massive swing from his 4-point victory in the previous election.

His colleague, GOP Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, who also got a shoutout from Trump at the rally, lost the seat she had held since 2022.

By the end of the night, Democrats had flipped the governorship, one U.S. Senate seat, and three U.S. House seats in Iowa.

The same pattern played out across the country, with candidates Trump had hit the campaign trail for posting weak results.

At a rally in Tennessee last month, Trump made a point of bringing GOP candidate Scott DesJarlais onstage, urging voters to reelect the eight-term congressman. But with nearly all the votes counted, DesJarlais now trails his Democratic challenger Victoria Broderick in an unexpected upset.

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At his stop in Vandalia, Ohio, last month, Trump implored voters to reelect GOP Rep. Mike Carey, boasting, “I got him in there a long time ago.”

After cruising to double-digit wins in previous elections, however, Carey fell to Democrat Don Leonard by more than 5 points on Tuesday.

During the same rally, he shouted out GOP Rep. Mike Turner, saying, “We’re going to take care of it.”

Turner is now on the verge of losing the seat he has held since 2003, trailing Democrat Kristina Knickerbocker by just over 1 point with nearly all votes counted. The 12-term congressman had won his last two elections by more than 18 points.

Many first-time GOP House candidates seeking to succeed retiring Republicans also struggled after Trump campaigned for them.

Trump’s midterm rally tour raised eyebrows for its focus on states he had handily won in 2024, with the president seemingly trying to defend safely Republican seats in the face of looming losses in battleground states.

Yet Trump’s defensive push did little to protect Republicans in several Senate races.

In Kansas, for instance, Trump campaigned hard for Sen. Roger Marshall, urging voters to turn out for the GOP senator.

“The golden age of America is upon us, but you must go out and vote,” he said at a rally on Sunday.

But Marshall, who won his 2020 Senate race by more than 10 points, was decisively defeated by Democrat Adam Hamilton, flipping the seat blue for the first time in nearly a century.

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