President Donald Trump’s insistence that Republicans would have won with him on the ballot exposed a bigger problem for MAGA, New Republic columnist Greg Sargent argued.
“I wasn’t on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!” Trump wrote as the results rolled in.
Sargent turned Trump’s defense back on him in a Wednesday analysis. If Republicans need Trump himself on the ballot to bring out the voters who powered his 2024 win, what happens when the party has to run without him?
The MAGA movement, Sargent wrote, “will almost certainly not be sustainable going forward, at least not in anything like its current form.”
“The MAGA coalition basically disintegrated on Tuesday night,” Sargent argued. He pointed to exit polls showing Democrats winning Latino and young voters by wide margins, reversing gains Trump made with both groups in 2024.
Democrats also flipped at least five Senate seats in states Trump had carried by double digits, Sargent added.
Trump blamed Fox News for giving Democrats airtime and privately accused aides of giving him bad polling information before the election, according to New York Times reporting cited by Sargent.
That leaves vice President JD Vance with a dilemma heading into 2028, Sargent argued. Breaking with Trump’s agenda could cost him the president’s support. Defending it could make it harder to win back voters who rejected it.
Trump’s fury over the bruising losses left MAGA’s future in doubt, Sargent wrote, prompting him to conclude, “It’s very hard to see where this movement goes from here, or what must happen for it to endure.”
Report typos and corrections to corrections@rawstory.com.
For customer support contact support@rawstory.com.
