Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) pointed the finger Tuesday at former President Donald Trump for poor Republican midterm election results, saying Trump "proved to be very decisive" in the outcome, as the rift between Trump and the top Senate Republican grows wider.
McConnell at his weekly press briefing named contests in Arizona and Georgia as ones where Republicans had trouble in particular, referring to Herschel Walker's Senate candidacy in Georgia as a "challenging situation."
McConnell said Trump's outsized influence over the GOP left Senate Republicans with little control over the nominating process, allowing for more extreme candidates running on Trump-backed culture war issues like false claims of fraud in the 2020 election to make it to general elections.
The Republican Senate leader lamented the "candidate quality" of Senate nominees heading into the election, tempering Republican expectations of a so-called "red wave" in August by saying, "I think there’s probably a greater likelihood the House flips than the Senate."
Republicans did not flip any Democratic-controlled Senate seats in the midterms, making President Joe Biden the first president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt whose party did not lose any Senate seats in a midterm election (Sen. Krysten Simena (I-Ariz.) left the Democratic Party last week but indicated she will still caucus with Democrats).
"My view was do the best you can with the cards you’re dealt," McConnell said. "Now...
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