Peter Baker in The New York Times:
President Trump implored voters over the course of the midterm campaign to “pretend I’m on the ballot.” He said it not once, not twice, but 47 times this fall.
And voters did — just not the way he hoped.
The Democratic wave in the congressional elections on Tuesday amounted to a stinging rebuke of a deeply unpopular president after more than a decade in which he has dominated the national stage. More than any of his predecessors, Mr. Trump deliberately made the midterm contest a referendum on himself, only to pay the price.
…Mr. Trump quickly tried to save face by insisting that the rout by Democrats was not really a rejection of him since he was not actually on the ballot — never mind that he told voters repeatedly to vote as if he were. “I wasn’t on the ticket, and because I wasn’t on the ticket, we couldn’t get enough people out to vote,” he told The Times in an interview Tuesday night.
More here.
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