CNN
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Mitch McConnell’s high-spending super PAC has a suggestion for their party’s campaign committee: Consider picking candidates in primaries who won’t collapse in the general election.
Others see a much bigger issue: Former President Donald Trump and his polarizing presence on the campaign trail – especially as he teased a 2024 campaign in the final days of the midterms.
“That certainly didn’t help,” one Republican lawmaker said.
Then there’s abortion, and Republican hand-wringing over their party’s failure to effectively respond to an onslaught of Democratic attacks. All the while, some are taking out their frustration at party leaders like McConnell and Kevin McCarthy.
“Washington Republicanism lost big Tuesday night,” said Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican.
The blame game taking shape in GOP circles comes after bullish predictions of a red wave that failed to materialize. Republicans are now at risk of serving in the Senate minority for the second straight Congress and are struggling to take even a narrow House majority.
After getting burned in 2010 and 2012 primaries where weak general election candidates cost his party the Senate majority, McConnell and his allies got more involved in primaries in subsequent cycles to knock off candidates they thought could cost them critical seats. But in 2022, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the party’s main campaign arm, did not interfere in the primaries.
The party has performed better in races where it was united.
In Nevada, former state attorney general Adam Laxalt is locked in a tight race with Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto as votes are being counted, and in Georgia, former football star Herschel Walker will face Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock in a December 6 runoff. But in New Hampshire and Arizona – states where McConnell’s super PAC, the Senate Leadership Fund, and the NRSC had different strategies – retired Army brigadier general Don Bolduc lost and venture capitalist Blake Masters is trailing. And Dr. Mehmet Oz, who survived a brutal primary with Trump’s endorsement, lost in a race that could ultimately cost their party the majority.
Retiring Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Pat Toomey said on CNN Thursday that Oz suffered because gubernatorial GOP…
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