The losers: What happens now for GOP stars who missed the red wave

Sarah Westwood

November 30, 05:30 AM November 30, 06:00 AM

When a red wave failed to materialize on Election Day this year, a number of rising GOP stars found themselves locked out of positions that could have landed them among the next generation of Republican leaders.

Now, those with intentions to run again have at least two years to bide their time before jumping at another chance.

Such patience paid off for Rep.-elect John James (R-MI), whose back-to-back losses in the 2018 and 2020 Senate races in Michigan did not stop him from seeking and winning a House seat in 2022.

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James was long viewed within Republican circles as a star in need of his big break. A West Point graduate and Army veteran, James went on to become a businessman after serving in Iraq.

He kept a relatively low profile in the years between his campaigns and continued to draw on his work for his family business, James Group International.

“History is littered with candidates who fail to properly navigate the transition between public to private life and back again,” Colin Reed, a Republican strategist, told the Washington Examiner. “The first rule is do no harm: Don’t sign up for any positions or employment opportunities that create political headaches on future personal financial disclosures.”

Some Republicans have, in the past, pivoted almost immediately to their next attempt.

For example, after narrowly losing a House race for a seat in Orange County, California, in 2018, GOP Rep. Young Kim announced she would campaign again in the same district less than six months later. She won in 2020 and held on against a strong Democratic challenge again this cycle.

Reed said the latest crop of high-caliber losing candidates should next “find a way to stay relevant and newsy, offering smart opinions and thought leadership on winning issues while avoiding thorny fights.”

“It requires a combination of keeping appearances fresh with national media while also remaining ingrained in the fabric of the community you’re seeking to represent,” he added. “Without the natural platform of a day-to-day campaign and the staffing infrastructure, it requires staying nimble, creative, and opportunistic.”

Some GOP candidates who lost in November are already telegraphing their next moves.

In Michigan, failed gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon has floated running for state Republican Party chair after falling short of unseating Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Attractive and charismatic, Dixon gained widespread name recognition in Michigan after entering the GOP primary as a relatively unknown entity.

“All of these folks, Tudor Dixon included, have to be strategic about what’s next and not jump at whatever comes up first or the first opportunity that presents itself,” David Dulio, a political science professor at Oakland University in Michigan, told the Washington Examiner. “The first opportunity might not be the best opportunity.”

A number of Michigan Republicans have expressed optimism that Dixon could succeed in future campaigns should she choose to run for office in the state again.

“She's getting huge crowds," said former GOP state Rep. Kurt Heise to a local news station. "As a former state rep, I've never seen candidates for governor get crowds the way she has.”

Some promising candidates have in the past gone back to the local political posts that gave them their springboards for ambitious bids initially.

Allan Fung raised Republican hopes of breaking the Democrats’ hold on Rhode Island’s congressional delegation this cycle when he appeared to surge close to his Democratic opponent in a House race. He lost by less than 4 percentage points.

It was not the first time Fung gunned for higher office. He won the Republican nomination for governor in both 2014 and 2018, losing both times to the Democrat.

In between, he returned to his day job: serving as the four-term mayor of Cranston, Rhode Island, until last year, which allowed him to maintain a record on which to run in his future bids.

Yesli Vega came up short in her quest to unseat Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger in a northern Virginia congressional district that Republicans had viewed as a prime pickup opportunity. She lost by roughly 5 percentage points.

Vega still has another year left in her term as a member of the Prince Williams County Board of Supervisors, which could give her a perch from which to continue making an impact in the area.

Other big-name Republicans who lost this cycle are staying involved with the national party.

Blake Masters, who went down in defeat in Arizona’s Senate race, is serving on an advisory council commissioned by the Republican National Committee to analyze why the GOP performed so poorly this cycle.

Masters was critical of establishment Republicans throughout his race.

Outgoing GOP Rep. Lee Zeldin, who vacated his New York congressional seat to launch an unsuccessful, but notably strong, challenge to Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, has openly toyed with the prospect of running for RNC chair since conceding his race.

Dulio pointed to some former associates of Donald Trump as examples of politicians who have used their time out of office to reposition themselves for a possible bid for higher office.

“I even think about somebody like Mike Pence,” Dulio said. “He laid low and is now maybe trying to rebuild a brand to potentially vie for the nomination.”

But some celebrity-status Republican losers have spent the time since their losses arguably complicating their path to higher office in the future.

Kari Lake, who lost narrowly to Democrat Katie Hobbs in the Arizona governor’s race, has refused to concede and alleged widespread incompetence and fraud ruined the credibility of the results.

Senate majority up in the air as Democrats fight to defy odds and hang on

David M. Drucker

November 09, 01:47 AM November 09, 01:56 AM

ATLANTA — The Senate majority hung in the balance Tuesday night as Democrats were proving more resilient than predicted, with votes that might yet swing the chamber to Republicans still being tallied in key battleground states.

In Pennsylvania, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D) defeated Dr. Mehmet Oz (R), flipping a Republican-held seat and giving Democrats some cushion in their bids to defy the odds and preserve their 50-seat Senate majority. Oz's loss in the Keystone State, along with Sen. Maggie Hassan (D) winning reelection in New Hampshire, Sen. Michael Bennet (D) winning another term in Colorado, and Sen. Patty Murray (D) holding on in Washington state, were major blows to Republican hopes of capturing the Senate and winning a decisive majority.

In Georgia, Republican challenger Herschel Walker held a razor-thin lead early Wednesday morning, with more votes yet to count. But Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) was threatening to push Walker into a runoff, overcoming stiff political headwinds from President Joe Biden’s low job approval ratings and Gov. Brian Kemp’s (R) comfortable victory over Democrat Stacey Abrams.

Results were still pending in Arizona and Nevada, where Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) and Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) were facing tough challenges that afforded Republicans a path to the Senate majority. But the red wave the GOP was predicting, one that some Republicans were predicting would win the party 54 or 55 Senate seats, was failing to materialize as the night wore on. At midnight Wednesday, Senate Democrats still had an opportunity to preserve a 50-seat majority that rests on Vice President Kamala Harris’s tiebreaking vote.

From Washington state to Arizona, Georgia to New Hampshire, and points in between, incumbent Democrats were feeling the heat from Republican challengers heading into Election Day. They had closed the gap in public opinion polls as voters expressed disappointment with Biden’s leadership and anxiety about skyrocketing inflation, rising crime, and the general direction of the country. But in interviews with the Washington Examiner, Democratic field volunteers knocking on doors and making phone calls said their voters were energized and likely to vote in large numbers.

“I feel good, you know?” said Dylanda Young, 54, a Warnock supporter who attended a campaign rally for the senator in Macon, Georgia, on the eve of the election. “I’ve been out canvassing, I’ve been out holding signs, and I’ve been getting a good vibe from everyone.”

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Just after midnight, veteran conservative activist Ralph Reed, speaking on behalf of the Walker campaign, conceded to the Republicans still gathered inside a hotel ballroom for the former professional football player’s election night party that no victory would be declared at the event. It was a stark reversal from Monday when Walker promised supporters gathered for his final campaign rally that there would be no runoff.

“It is going to be a very long night,” Reed said. “Here is the good news: We are hitting all of our projections.”

In Nevada, where GOP insiders have long believed Republican Adam Laxalt, the former state attorney general, presents the party with its most likely path to 51 votes, polls showed he was poised to oust Cortez Masto. The contest could be ground zero for Senate control and decide whether Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is re-upped for another term or whether Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) takes the reins.

Surveys further revealed Laxalt was benefiting from a historic uptick in support from Hispanic and other nonwhite voting blocs. Indeed, some GOP strategists in the Silver State projected Hispanic support for the party’s ticket could top 40%, making Laxalt difficult to beat. But again, Democratic activists in Nevada said what they were experiencing on the ground was something different than what the polls indicated.

“I’m not” concerned about the polls, Maria Prentice, 67, a longtime Hispanic Democratic activist and Cortez Masto supporter, said, adding, “I’m very positive” about the senator winning reelection.

Republican optimism about their Senate prospects was understandable. Several obstacles appeared to be blocking the Democrats’ bid to retain control and preserve at least one base of power for their party on Capitol Hill as voters headed to the polls Tuesday after weeks of early, in-person, and mail-in balloting. Chief among them was the 2022 electoral map.

Republicans were playing defense in just one battleground, Pennsylvania, where Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) is retiring. In every other contested state, Republicans were on the march, headed toward victory in GOP territory while threatening to turn blue seats red.

Specifically, Republicans were cruising in open seats they were defending in North Carolina and Ohio — and in states where the party’s incumbents, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), were running for reelection. That was to be expected in a cycle that saw a Republican wave begin to build as early as November 2021, when now-Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) captured a state Biden had won by 10 percentage points one year earlier.

What Democrats did not expect was to be looking over their shoulder in blue strongholds like Colorado and Washington state.

Bennet was being pushed by centrist GOP challenger Joe O’Dea, and Murray in Washington state was on the ropes versus hard-charging Republican Tiffany Smiley. The GOP last won a Senate race in Washington state in 1994, but Smiley essentially declared victory before Election Day in a memo issued by her campaign cautioning that ballots in Washington state, cast strictly through the mail, would take several days to count.

But both contests were called for the Democrats on the early side Tuesday evening. “I think we’re going to be really successful Tuesday night,” Murray told the Washington Examiner on Friday. Turns out, she was right.