Trump took a bizarre final bow as his midterm campaign flew off the rails

Marion McKeone

IT WAS FITTING in the context of the most bizarre and tone-deaf midterm efforts by any president in US history that Donald Trump, on the cusp of the lame duck era of his presidency, would choose a pond as the backdrop for his final feather-ruffling speech.

And not just any pond. He chose the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, the recreation spot of choice for DC’s duck population, which has itself become a metaphor for the grift, incompetence and vindictiveness that has characterised Trump’s presidency.

While midterm strategists swallowed anguished screams of frustration and despair, Trump spent the first 23 minutes of his final address before the midterms describing the renovations to the Reflecting Pool in forensic detail, and of course, adding a few embellishments of his own.

On the eve of any midterm race, the US President delivers a final bracing pep talk that motivates his party’s voters to head to the polling stations in droves and pull the lever for his candidates. Instead, recalcitrant Republicans and MAGA voters were treated to a treatise on pipe repairs, rebar replacements and drainage alterations.

Not to mention a lecture on the finer points of waterproofing. And of course, Trump persisted in his baseless claims that the initial renovations had been vandalised and even managed to imply that ‘dirty cop’ and former FBI Director James Comey had inspired the culprits.

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On and on he droned at the Reflecting Pool’s edge, a lame duck incapable of self-reflection, extolling countless other renovations and repairs to the nation’s capital. It was a norm-shattering finale to a norm-shattering midterm season characterised by unprecedented levels of bigotry, vulgarity and billionaire influence.

From the ridiculous to the…

As tens of millions of Americans go to the polls today to choose their House and Senate leaders and 36 of the 50 states choose new governors, Trump has never looked more vulnerable. After 28 days on the campaign trail, a feat that would exhaust a president half his age, his physical and mental deterioration have become glaringly evident, as has his disconnectedness from his still fiercely loyal base.

US elections are famous for their ‘October surprises’. The Michigan bare-knuckle brawl delivered, with Hayley Stevens’ sensational last-minute endorsement of Republican Mike Rogers over her Democratic primary opponent Abdul El-Sayed.

But the biggest and most perplexing surprise in the final weeks was Trump’s fixation with the backsides of male Republican contenders and his failure to focus on perceived successes on issues like border control or tax cuts.

Over and over, he marvelled at Ohio Senate incumbent John Husted’s physique, specifically the tautness of his rear. But it wasn’t just Husted, a dozen other Republican candidates had their physiques evaluated from the stage of rallies in Kansas, Michigan, Texas, South Carolina and Iowa. And all of them, except the hapless Texas candidate Ken Paxton, received glowing reviews. Social media platforms mocked Trump’s ‘gaymentia’, while polls suggested that American voters were more concerned about the price of gas than the firmness of Husted’s ass.

For Republicans feeling the brunt of soaring energy prices because of the war in Iran, and a corresponding spike in consumer costs due to Trump’s tariffs, his twin obsessions with the physiques of Republican candidates and his billion dollars’ worth of vanity projects in Washington are perplexing and enraging.

Neither his inner circle nor White House pollsters could divert him from boasts about gilded ballrooms, helicopter pads and 270-foot-high marble arches. Even worse, when he has occasionally spoken about rising energy costs, he dismissed the impact on ordinary Americans, instead boasting that the energy corporations are “making a freaking fortune”.

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Potential results

A worst-case scenario for Trump, and the Republican Party, would be a decisive loss of control of the Senate and the House of Representatives, coupled with the loss of governors’ races and state legislatures in key Republican strongholds like Alaska, Texas and Florida.

It’s theoretically possible that the Senate could flip from its current 53-47 in favour of Republicans to 56-43 in favour of Democrats, with an independent picking up the Republican-held seat in Nebraska. And this in a Senate map where the seats being contested heavily favour Republicans. What was previously unthinkable – that Republicans could lose their cast-iron grip on deep red Senate seats in Texas, Kansas, South Carolina, Iowa and Ohio – is now a distinct possibility.

That Democrats will take the Republican seat in North Carolina is a virtual certainty. It’s also possible that the wave of anti-Trump sentiment could cost a seat in Maine that Republican moderate Susan Collins, hitherto impervious to the ebbs and flows of pro and anti-Republican sentiment, has held for 30 years. And while the ugly spat in Michigan could lead to Republicans picking off a Democrat seat, that possibility is viewed as unlikely.

Signs of a Democratic sweep are bolstered by the record-breaking early turnout. Fewer than half of eligible voters typically vote in midterm elections but this time around more than 58 million Americans have already cast their ballots. For the Democrats fever dreams of victory in Texas and other deep red states to materialise, they need unprecedented turnout from Democrats and Independents – and for Republicans to stay home in droves.

There are many caveats, multiple ways in which a blue wave could crash and retreat in the face of a red wall of tribalism, Democrat-skewed polling and the multi-billion-dollar splurge by Trump-supporting billionaires on Republican candidates.

But regardless of whether they can flip the Senate and by what margin, Democrats control of the House of Representatives is all but assured. But delivering on their promises to bring down prices, curtailing Trump and bringing an end to the war on Iran may prove more difficult than the Democrats – or their voters – anticipate.

Marion McKeone is an award-winning journalist, writer and documentary maker.