Republicans are 'privately furious' at Trump over the Georgia election losses

Trump and Kelly Loeffler — (Image credit: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images)

Republicans on Wednesday are reeling over the loss of one, probably two Senate seats in Georgia on Tuesday. If Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff flip both Senate seats, as now expected, the Democrats will take control of the Senate on Jan. 20. And "Republicans, who enabled President Trump with their silence and compliance, are privately furious with him for blowing their Senate majority," Mike Allen reports at Axios. "It's a fitting and predictable end to Trump's reign."

"In four years, Trump has lost his presidency, and the House and the Senate for the GOP," Marc Caputo notes at Politico. And "while Trump has a phoenix-like ability to rise from the ashes of his norm-shattering outrages, others just become ash." The "blame game is already burning within the GOP," he adds, but aside from Georgia election official Gabriel Sterling — who blamed Trump on CNN — most Republicans "are criticizing Trump anonymously."

"Trump is the cause of this, lock, stock, and barrel," one Republican strategist told Politico. "But when you're relying on someone to win you a Senate race that also lost statewide eight weeks prior, you're not in a position of strength." A senior Senate GOP aide, when asked why Republicans lost on Tuesday, said, "Donald J. Trump." Some Trump allies pushed back, blaming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) for refusing to hold a vote on $2,000 stimulus checks. The Republican candidates, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, also took friendly fire.

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But many "top Republicans blame Trump for sabotaging what should have been two easy wins — turning off suburban voters with his chaos and craziness, and sowing distrust of the Peach State election machinery with base voters," Axios' Allen writes. Still, "as a curtain call for Trumpism, approximately a dozen senators and 100+ House Republicans today will publicly support an idea that many of them think is idiotic and doomed to fail, as they protest congressional certification of President-elect Biden's victory."

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.