Trump’s Reaction to New York Special-Election Loss Should Worry Republicans

Former president Donald Trump speaks at a campaign event ahead of the Republican presidential primary election in North Charleston, S.C., February 14, 2024.

There are many ways to explain Democrats’ pickup of a New York congressional seat in the special election triggered by George Santos’s ouster from office. The most straightforward is that the district was carried by Joe Biden in 2020 and had been held by Democrat Tom Suozzi for three terms before he gave it up to run for governor, providing the opening for Santos in 2022. Republican candidate Mazi Pilip was much less well known than Suozzi and had a short period of time to campaign in a race where she was dramatically outspent. And, to add an additional obstacle, with Republicans counting on strong election-day turnout given their voters’ reluctance to engage in early voting, the New York area was pummeled by a severe snowstorm.

Yet Donald Trump was quick to chime in with an alternate explanation: Pilip was simply not MAGA enough. Trump lashed out on Truth Social, calling Pilip a “very foolish woman” who didn’t endorse him and tried to “straddle the fence.” He added, “MAGA, WHICH IS MOST OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, STAYED HOME – AND IT ALWAYS WILL, UNLESS IT IS TREATED WITH THE RESPECT THAT IT DESERVES. I STAYED OUT OF THE RACE, ‘I WANT TO BE LOVED!’”

A recent NBC poll that received a lot of attention from Republicans because it was so disastrous for Biden also found that 52 percent of Americans had a negative view of Trump. Many of those voters are located in parts of the country that Republicans will need to retake the Senate and build their House majority. If Trump is going to undermine every candidate who doesn’t show him sufficient “love” or who refuses to endorse his stolen-election claims, Republicans will fail to reach their goals for Congress — even if Trump himself manages to defeat a hobbled Biden.

We saw this play out in 2022 when Republicans dramatically underperformed what was supposed to be a major red wave because it was so easy to tie Republican candidates to Trump and his unpopular election claims. The fact that GOP primaries became contests of fealty to Trump also short-circuited the normal process through which primary voters vet candidates. That’s how Republicans, in some of the most competitive Senate races in the country, wound up with nominees including Herschel Walker and Dr. Oz, who lost to weak Democratic candidates.

Unlike Trump, Democrats understand that there are races in which their candidates will have to distance themselves from Biden. On the day before the election, Suozzi conceded of Biden, “He’s old, and there’s no question about it.” He also hedged when discussing supporting the president by leaving open the possibility Biden could be replaced as nominee: “If he ends up being the Democratic candidate, I’m likely to support him, yes. We’ve got to see what happens.”

While it is always a mistake to overinterpret special-election results, Trump’s reaction should be concerning for Republicans hoping to win a governing majority in Congress this November.

More on National Review