DeSantis Says Midterm Voters Handed ‘Rebuke’ to GOP Over Congressional Inaction

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis says that the Republican Party’s losses during the midterm elections on Tuesday were, in part, a “rebuke” of the GOP-controlled Congress.

During the elections, the GOP saw significant losses in both the Senate and House of Representatives, handing control of Congress back to the Democrats.

“Why haven’t we done immigration, shut off H-1B visas? Why haven’t we codified [President Donald] Trump’s immigration executive orders? Why haven’t we stripped jurisdiction from the federal courts over deportation cases?” the Republican governor said in an interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham.

“There’s so many things that could have been done. They didn’t even attempt it.”

He added that the blame also could be laid at the feet of the Trump administration.

“This midterm, no question, was a rebuke of the president and the Congress by Democrats, independents, and some Republicans that crossed over.

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DeSantis added that “a lot” of Republican voters didn’t vote on Tuesday, saying they were “frustrated with the lack of productivity from Republicans in the House and Senate.”

“That’s just a fact,” he said. “They were promised big things, and they didn’t deliver it.”

Exit polling showed that the U.S. economy was a significant issue for voters, with around 75 percent of people who responded telling CBS News in a poll that the current state of the economy was “not good” and those who said the economy was in poor shape generally voted for Democrats in the House.

According to an Associated Press voter poll released Thursday, the Trump administration’s economic policies, inflation, energy costs, and other economic matters caused voters to sour on the GOP and the White House.

Most respondents said that Trump’s own policies had smothered growth and driven costs higher, according to The AP Voter Poll, a survey of roughly 100,000 midterm voters. The president’s message that the fault lay with his predecessor, President Joe Biden, didn’t land. Energy costs also spiked after he launched a war alongside Israel against Iran in February.

About two-thirds of voters said Trump’s own policies had fueled inflation. By contrast, only about half of 2022 midterm voters said this about Biden’s policies, according to AP.

Consumer prices were up 3.7 percent over the past 12 months, compared to an inflation rate of 3 percent when Trump began his second term.

Trump, responding to the losses, told reporters on Wednesday that the Iran war “drove the gasoline up a little bit short-term,” but he felt the choice to fight Iran was worth it because of its push for nuclear weapons.

“If I had to do it again, I’d have to do it again,” he added.

Meanwhile, oil prices have plummeted since Oct. 30, with West Texas Intermediate dropping from $104 per barrel to under $90 on Nov. 5, and Brent crude dropping from around $118 to $97 over the same period.

DeSantis’s comments on Thursday bore similarities to what historian Victor Davis Hanson said in an interview with The Epoch Times that was published on Wednesday as he criticized what he called the “do-nothing” Republican-led Congress.

“They really didn’t do anything,” Hanson said.

“They did not pass the Voter ID” or the SAVE America Act, a voter security measure that has stalled in the Senate over the past several months, he said, adding that Republicans also couldn’t repeal the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.

Adding that he couldn’t remember “anything they did in the first two years,” Hanson noted, “Even the judicial nominations were pretty slow.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.