by N. Peter Kramer *
With one exception, George W. Bush in 2002. But Obama, Clinton and many of their predecessors including the legendary President Franklin D. Roosevelt did. That means, looking at the results, we can’t say that his (first) midterm elections did bring the big defeat for Donald Trump, where the Democrats were dreaming of. Trump’s Republicans lost indeed their majority in the House, as expected, but not in the spectacular way as Obama did in his first midterm election. He lost in 2010 as well the majority in the Senate. The Republicans this year were even able to strengthen their majority. Also the elections of State Governors didn’t show a weakening of the Republican position.
Conclusion, the referendum about Trump’s two years in the White House was not a disaster. The furious anti-Trump campaign of the Democrats didn’t bring the results they worked hard on, strongly supported by their ‘media-partners’ the New York Times, the Washington Post and CNN. But the anti-Trump campaign of the Democrats goes on. After that became clear they won the majority in the House, Democratic leaders reacted that the first thing they are going to do in the new House, is to attack the President personally. No word about policies for the future…
Attention: today campaigning for the US elections of November 3, 2020 starts!
* EBR editor-in-chief reports from Washington DC about the US Elections, November 6, 2018
