Three ways Mitch McConnell helped lose the midterms

The Senate GOP leader needs more blame. Start with Merrick Garland.

A lot of the midterm recriminations in the Republican Party are being aimed at Donald Trump, and honestly: Good. He is to blame for some of the GOP’s unpopularity, and maybe he doesn’t bear the entirety of the blame, but there’s never been a figure more ripe for scapegoating. If this rids us of this meddlesome conman, so much the better.

But you know who needs more blame? Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell.

I am not a fan of McConnell. At The Week, I once called him the most consequential politician of the decade — and, uh, not in a good way — and I stick by that. He also had a chance to stop Trumpism in its tracks after the Jan. 6 insurrection and chickened out. So: I’m biased.

But you don’t need biases to see that McConnell may have fumbled a bit in these midterms. The Washington Post has a rundown that involves a few Republicans trying to blame him for steering money the wrong places or the wrong ways, and possibly there’s something to that, but I’d like to list three other factors that probably played a role:

* No agenda, no problem: Mitch bet on Democrats defeating themselves, and rather pointedly refused to put forth an agenda for Senate Republicans should they win a majority.

"One of the biggest mistakes challengers often make is thinking campaigns are about them and their ideas," a source told Axios. "No one gives a s--t about that. Elections are referendums on incumbents."

This wasn’t just a Mitch thing. Steve Benen points out that House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy also ducked questions about how Republicans would solve inflation, the biggest issue heading into the midterms. But McCarthy at least out a “Commitment to America” that, while vague, at least made forward-looking problem-solving noises. Mitch chose silence. How’d that work out?

* He backed bad candidates: McConnell famously grumbled about “candidate quality” earlier this fall, but he had a hand in the rise of one of the most notoriously unqualified candidates: Herschel Walker.

Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker has won the endorsement of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, cementing his support from the Republican Party establishment in a race that could determine which party controls the chamber.

The endorsement could help Walker lock down the GOP primary, where he faces several lesser-known opponents.

That was October 2021. Maybe Walker would’ve won the GOP primary anyway — he had Trump’s backing after all — but McConnell’s endorsement (as Politico notes) helped lock it down. And who knows: Maybe Walker will win the runoff with Sen. Warnock. But that will be despite his manifest unfitness — an unfitness that was obvious even at the moment of Mitch’s endorsement.

* Merrick Garland: Mitch blocked President Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, and instead was instrumental in giving the court its 6-3 supermajority that overturned Roe v. Wade. And his party seemed utterly unprepared for how to proceed when the ruling came down.

That’s had some short-term consequences for Republicans.

Soaring inflation, which preelection polls showed was, by far, the most important issue for voters, just barely outpaced abortion in exit polls, 31 percent to 27 percent, according to the National Election Pool exit poll, conducted by Edison Research. And about 60 percent of voters said they were dissatisfied or angry with the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, according to both that exit poll and AP Votecast.

In short: "This was an abortion election."

Mitch will probably continue to lead Senate Republicans. His chief challenger just bowed out. But he’s 80, and — despite being far more talented at the nuts and bolts of governing than anybody else on offer in his party — deeply unpopular with the GOP base. (Trump has something to do with that.) He won’t be around forever to kick around. But he deserves a kick this time around.