At least 14 Trump-endorsed candidates are projected to lose their midterm bids -- a result that sources tell ABC News has the former president "fuming."
Republicans appeared poised on Wednesday to carve out a slim majority in the US House of Representatives but their hopes of a "red wave" in midterm elections were dashed as President Joe Biden's Democrats defied expectations.
According to ABC News, as the results began to roll in Tuesday night, Donald Trump was watching from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and started to become angry as some of his most high-profile candidates appeared to be headed to defeat in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio.
"This is a sinking ship," one top Trump adviser told ABC News. "We're not going to beat that."
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"This was the end of the Trump era and the dawn of the DeSantis era," a Republican operative close to the Trump orbit told ABC News. "Like every other Trump catastrophe, he did this to himself with stupid and reckless decisions."
The losses in Pennsylvania of Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz and gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano were particularly jarring for Trump. Sources tell ABC News he blamed his wife, Melania, for pressuring him to endorse Oz. He also blaming aides for leading him to endorse other failed candidates.
How this will affect Trump's expected announcement of a 2024 run remains to be seen.
Among other races, Maura Healey of Massachusetts will make history as the first openly lesbian governor in the United States, and in New York, Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul fended off a Republican challenge.
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In ballot initiatives in five states, preliminary results indicated that voters supported abortion rights in a pushback to the anti-abortion movement which won a crucial Supreme Court decision in June.
Aiming to deliver a rebuke of Biden's presidency against a backdrop of sky-high inflation and bitter culture wars, Republicans needed just one extra seat to wrest control of the evenly divided Senate.
But by early Wednesday the only seat to change party hands went to the Democrats, with John Fetterman, a burly champion of progressive economic policies, triumphing in Pennsylvania over the Trump-endorsed celebrity doctor.
In the 435-member House, results suggested Republicans were on track for a majority -- but only by a handful of seats, a far cry from their predictions.
With additional reporting by AFP
