Republicans braced for a day of recriminations Wednesday as they woke to a midterm rout in states across the nation, with Democrats reclaiming both the Senate and House by stunningly wide margins.
In private calls and texts, Republicans lamented strategies they now viewed as inadequate — like the southern redistricting gambit — or politically damaging, like launching the war in Iran.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump spent the latter half of election night trying to distance himself from his party’s electoral debacle, after weeks of urging voters to go to the polls as if he were on the ballot.
