Conservatives Dispute ‘Media Hoaxes’ About Midterm Results
When Republican candidates failed to secure as many victories in last week’s election as some pundits predicted, the mainstream media began to weave the narrative that former President Donald Trump was to blame.
NBC News reporter Sahil Kapur claimed that Trump “appears to have helped” Democrats hold on to certain seats in the recent midterms.
“In a major departure from past trends, the 2022 midterm election turned out to be nearly as much of a referendum on the defeated former president as it was on incumbent President Joe Biden,” he said, echoing the sentiment of others in his profession.
While even a few right-leaning networks offered similar analyses, plenty of conservative pundits and politicians were quick to point out the absurdity of such claims.
Dick Morris, a one-time Democratic consultant who has since become a prominent GOP commentator, penned an op-ed dismantling one of “the biggest media hoaxes” to emerge from the post-election coverage, namely “that the Republicans lost the midterm elections … and that it was a sign voters are tiring of Donald Trump.
Taking the total popular vote into account, he noted that there was “almost a 5 million-vote Republican majority” in the nation’s House races. Furthermore, comparing the recent midterms to the Democratic victories of 2020, this year’s election represented “the largest gain by Republicans between the presidential and congressional elections going back to before 2000.”
Morris argued that last week’s elections did not amount to a political defeat for the GOP, but was instead a case of unrealistic expectations.
“And none of it was Trump’s fault,” he concluded.
Citing election laws in Pennsylvania and tabulation problems in Arizona, Morris wrote that the GOP was at a clear disadvantage well before Election Day. He also chided “stupid” Republicans for not following the Democrats’ lead by casting absentee ballots.
“This kind of suppression of our vote played a key role in our Senate defeats,” he reasoned.
As for Republicans who have engaged in the post-election blame game, one Trump-backed candidate shared his own thoughts in an op-ed called “Don’t Blame Trump.”
U.S. Sen.-elect J.D. Vance (R-OH) wrote that pointing a finger at the 45th president is both lazy and counterproductive.
“Of course, no man is above criticism,” he argued. “But the quick turn from gobbling up credit to vomiting blame suggests there is very little analysis at work.”
