The man who could finally finish Donald Trump off

Donald Trump has suffered his “worst possible” outcome. And it opens the door for the man who may finally end the ex-President’s dreams.

Tuesday’s disappointing US midterm elections have delivered the “worst possible” outcome for Donald Trump.

While it was widely predicted the Republican Party would ride a “red wave” to victory in congressional and state races, it turned out to be more of a “red ripple” with many Trump-backed candidates falling short.

The biggest winner, however, was Florida’s popular Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, who won re-election over Democrat challenger Charlie Crist with an astonishing margin of nearly 20 per cent.

“We have embraced freedom, we have maintained law and order, we have protected the rights of parents, we have respected our taxpayers and we reject woke ideology,” Mr DeSantis said in an impassioned victory speech.

“We fight the woke in the legislature, we fight the woke in the schools, we fight the woke in the corporations, we will never ever surrender to the woke mob – Florida is where woke goes to die.”

Mr DeSantis, 44, is widely seen as the most likely challenger to 76-year-old Trump for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, and Tuesday’s results have sparked an all-out civil war in the party.

Betting website PredictIt now has Mr DeSantis as the favourite to win the nomination.

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Ron DeSantis with his wife Casey and children Madison, Mamie and Mason. Picture: Giorgio Viera/AFP

On a night that was deflating for Republicans, the result in Florida was energising. Mr DeSantis, who the Financial Times described as “Trump with the brains but without the drama”, won a landslide victory partly by gaining ground with Latino voters.

He also barely uttered Mr Trump’s name on the campaign trail – whereas Trump branded the Governor “Ron DeSanctimonious” at a rally days before the vote while warning it would be a “mistake” for him to run in 2024.

“I would tell you things about him that won’t be very flattering – I know more about him than anybody, other than, perhaps, his wife,” the former president told Fox News Digital.

Meanwhile, many conservatives put the blame for the underwhelming midterm result squarely on Mr Trump.

“Trump pushed a bunch of candidates that suck and everyone knew it but we have no choice but to go along,” Republican strategist Caleb Hull said. “We had everything on our side and missed the mark. DeSantis is the new head of the party, not a 76-year-old man.”

Commentators argued that Mr Trump had endorsed outlandish candidates who turned easy victories into close races, and close races into losses.

“All the chatter on my conservative and GOP channels is rage at Trump like I’ve never seen,” National Review senior writer Michael Brendan Dougherty said. “The one guy he attacked before election day was DeSantis, the clear winner, meanwhile, all his guys are s**ting the bed.”

Former US president Donald Trump. Picture: Eva Marie Uzcategui/AFP

RealClearPolitics reporter Phil Wegmann wrote: “GOP source tells me after tonight, with Trump candidates underperforming and DeSantis winning by double digits, 2024 is a ‘free for all’. ‘Everybody in the water. If you want to take on Trump, he’s never been weaker.’”

Others said Mr Trump had failed to move on from his 2020 loss.

“Trump is living in the past, trying to re-litigate 2020, and lost,” venture capitalist John Durant wrote on Twitter.

“DeSantis is the future. Won big. No more excuses. We’re about to see an inversion in Republican dynamics. Instead of Never Trump, we’ll see Forever Trump — a substantial but dwindling number who can’t see any fault in the Don, loyal to the bitter end. Everyone else will unify around DeSantis.”

But many Trump supporters continue to defend the billionaire, instead pointing the finger at the Republican “establishment” leadership of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and GOP chairwoman Ronna McDaniel.

“The GOP ‘McLeadership’ must change,” wrote Raheem Kassam from The National Pulse.

“If you accept that Republicans should have done better in this cycle, you have to go to the source of where the decisions are made and how the money is spent. That’s in the hands of people like Kevin McCarthy, [National Republican Congressional Committee chair] Tom Emmer, Mitch McConnell, and Ronna Romney McDaniel. Trump isn’t a ‘party leader’ in a European political sense. He wasn’t on the ballot this year. He doesn’t control the purse strings, nor the hires inside the GOP.”

Ronna McDaniel, Kevin McCarthy and Tom Emmer. Picture: Sarah Silbiger/Getty/AFP

Florida state representative Anthony Sabatini, who was defeated in the Republican congressional primary for Florida’s seventh district in August, also slammed Mr McCarthy.

“Kevin McCarthy spent close to $US10 million ($A15.5 million) going after me, Joe Kent and six other Republicans in their primary elections,” he wrote. “That money could have been spent lifting up the Republicans we just saw lose. McCarthy is a failed disgrace and must NOT become Speaker.”

Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene also hit out at those blaming Mr Trump.

“That is a lazy, pathetic, wimpy, easy mindset,” she told Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast. “They just want one thing and then they want to carry on without doing the hard work, the real changes in the Republican Party and the way we fight the fight.”

Ms Greene said it was “not Trump’s fault” because he had been “politically persecuted for the past two years”.

“He went out and did 30 Save America rallies all over the country, he endorsed something like 285 candidates, he held over 50 fundraisers, helped raise over $US350 million [$A544 million],” she said.

“President Trump isn’t the problem – president Trump is doing everything he can to help Republicans across the country while he is being politically persecuted worse than any human being in our country’s history. That’s the real truth. We have to do the real work to fix the issues in our party, in our state elections, we have to wrap up those issues.”

Speaking to Fox News Digital on Wednesday, Mr Trump said he was “proud” of the result and that his plan to make a “major” announcement next week had not changed due to the “tremendous success” he had.

Ron DeSantis is now favourite to win the 2024 presidential nomination. Picture: Giorgio Viera/AFP

“There is a fake news narrative that I was furious,” Mr Trump said. “It is just the opposite.

“The people I endorsed did very well. I was batting 98.6 per cent in the primaries and 216 to 19 in the general election – that is amazing. All these guys that are winning are my people.”

Mr Trump touted the wins of Senator Chuck Grassley in Iowa, Marco Rubio in Florida, Eric Schmitt in Missouri, JD Vance in Ohio, Ted Budd in North Carolina, Ron Johnson in Wisconsin and others.

The former president also talked about Pennsylvania’s hard-fought Senate race between Democratic senator-elect John Fetterman and Republican candidate Dr Mehmet Oz, who he had backed.

“Oz worked very hard, but there were forces against him,” Mr Trump said. “Oz is a great guy. He had a lot of immovable forces against him.”

Trump-backed Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano was also defeated by his Democratic opponent, and in Michigan, Trump-endorsed Republican Tudor Dixon was turned back in her effort to unseat Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer.

On Monday night, the eve of election day, Mr Trump teased that he would be making a “major” announcement from Mar-a-Lago on November 15 – signalling that he may formally announce his plans to run for president in 2024.

Pundits have questioned whether Tuesday’s election results for Republicans would change Mr Trump’s plans to launch a third White House bid.

“We had tremendous success,” he said. “Why would anything change?”

– with Fox News