Trump Could Destroy GOP Chance Of Winning In 2022

The media loves to report that the Republicans will win in 2022, and resume control of one or both houses of Congress. But that is far from assured. The Republicans have a big problem -- Donald Trump. Trump is waging war on many Republicans and dividing the party. If he is successful at defeating moderate Republicans and replacing them with extremist Trump-lovers, there is a good chance the voting public will be disgusted, and vote against them. Trump's narcissism and support for extremists gives Democrats a really good chance to win in 2022.

Here is part of an article by Matthew Continetti in The New York Times:

Time and again, the biggest obstacle to a red wave hasn’t been the Democratic Party. It’s been the Republican Party.

Republican victories in the midterms next year are far from preordained. . . .

Mr. Trump remains the central figure in the G.O.P. Party elites try to ignore him as he spends many days fighting Republicans rather than Democrats and plotting his revenge against the 10 Republican House members who voted for his second impeachment, the seven Republican senators who voted to convict him and the 13 House Republicans who voted for the bipartisan infrastructure bill. Mr. Trump targets his enemies with primary challenges, calls for “audits” and “decertification” of the 2020 presidential results and howls at Mitch McConnell for not being “tough.” His imitators within the party are a font of endless infighting and controversy, and they undermine the authority of the House Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy. Mr. Trump would have it no other way.

The former president was content to keep a distance in this year’s races for governor. He won’t be so quiet next year — especially if he concludes that a successful midterm is a key step to his restoration to power in 2024. A more visible and vocal Trump has the potential to help Republicans in solid red states but doom them in purple or blue ones. Yet control of the Senate hinges on the results in Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire — states Mr. Trump lost in 2020. . . .

If Republicans campaign on a unified message that applies conservative principles to inflation, the border, crime, education and health care, they might be able to avoid being tagged as the party of extremism, conspiracy and loyalty to Mr. Trump. Their problem is that they have no such message.

Mr. McConnell has reportedly told Senate Republicans that they won’t release an agenda before the midterms. He’s worried that specific proposals are nothing but fodder for Democratic attacks. What should worry him more are rudderless Republican candidates who allow their Democratic opponents to define them negatively — and then, if they still win, take office in January 2023 with no idea what to do. . . .

Republicans appear either unwilling or unable to treat the former president as a figure from the past whose behavior has done the party more harm than good. They take false comfort in the idea that midterm elections are “thermostatic,” the inevitable repudiation, climatic in nature, of the governing party. They assume they will win next year without doing anything of significance.