Growing number of conservatives call on Republicans to ditch Trump after ‘red wave’ fails to arrive

A number of conservative media outlets have ramped up calls for the Republican Party to move on from Donald Trump, Newsweek reports, citing one example of a recent op-ed in the National Review by conservative writer Charles Cooke, who declared that it’s “time for Donald Trump to go.”

“Trump is a loser,” Cooke wrote. “He squeaked past the most unpopular woman in America in 2016, he presided over a blue wave in 2018, he lost to a barely breathing Joe Biden in 2020, and he hand-picked a bevy of losing Republican nominees in 2022.”

The poor performance of Trump-backed candidates in Tuesday’s midterms has some questioning whether his star power can still dominate the political playing field — and those same people are having second thoughts about Trump announcing a 2024 run for the White House.

As Newsweek points out, Fox News’ Marc Thiessen on Tuesday said that Republicans have to rethink their support for Trump going forward.

“They looked at all of that and looked at the Republican Party alternative and said ‘no thanks.’ The Republican Party needs to do a real deep introspection look in the mirror because this is an absolute disaster,” Thiessen said, calling the results of the election “a searing indictment of the Republican Party.”

In an editorial from the Washington Examiner, the paper pointed out that as the less-then-stellar results for Republicans rolled in on Tuesday, “Trump reportedly resorted to screaming about bad GOP candidates. But they were his people. This is his fault. Without Trump to run against, Biden and the Democrats would probably have been roundly rebuked by voters.”

Adding to the Trump defections, Virginia’s Republican Lt. Governor told Fox Business on Thursday that her party needs to move on from Trump and she will not support him if he runs in 2024.

Winsome Sears, who was formerly the chair of “Black Americans to Re-elect President Trump” said that the poor performance of Trump’s favorite candidates in Tuesday’s midterm elections convinced her that he’s a “liability” for the GOP.

“The voters have spoken, and they’ve said that they want a different leader,” she said. “And a true leader understands when they have become a liability.”

Sky Palma

Before launching DeadState back in 2012, Sky Palma has been blogging about politics, social issues and religion for over a decade. He lives in Los Angeles and also enjoys Brazilian jiu jitsu, chess, music and art.