Former US President Donald Trump and former US First Lady Melania Trump speak to the media while departing a polling station after voting in the US mid-term elections at Morton and Barbara Mandel Recreation Center in Palm Beach, Florida. Photo: AFP
Comment - In 2016 the US electorate was feeling frustrated, let down, embattled, even desperate. It was, truth be told, willing to indulge its tendency for some racism and misogyny. So it screwed up its face, held its breath and reached out for Donald Trump.
The years since have been as bad, if not worse, than many of us imagined that night. Abuse, corruption and lies have become normalised and, most worryingly, celebrated. America's democracy has gone from dysfunctional and divided to in peril of death.
The world has been waiting years for American voters to exhale. Maybe, just maybe, in this week's mid-terms, they have.
The election results may be just a puff of breath, but these mid-terms offer a glimmer of hope that the US might yet be able to rediscover its better self. At very least, it may be starting to breathe out the toxins of the Trump years, maybe moving towards ridding itself of Trump himself.
In truth the US electorate is still frustrated and embattled. Division has only deepened since 2016 and US democracy is incredibly frail. So speaking of new life signs may be a heroic reading of an election where Joe Biden and the Democrats have probably lost the House and could yet lose the Senate. But hear me out.
For all their losses, the Democrats have just had the most successful mid-terms for any incumbent party since 2002.
They held the House 220-212 before these mid-terms and it looks likely that number will roughly flip, with Republicans having 220-something and the Democrats' 10-20 fewer. But the party of the sitting president losing seats is what mid-terms are all about. They're almost always an outlet for frustration that kicks the incumbent.
The president's party has lost seats in all mid-terms since 1946, bar two. The exceptions were in 1998, amidst the botched attempt to impeach Bill Clinton, his adoption of many Republican policies and a booming economy, and in 2002, after 9/11 when America rallied behind George W Bush as a war president. The only other time since the civil war that a president's party made gains was after Franklin D Roosevelt's New Deal.
The average loss of seats since 1946 has been 27 seats. With inflation and pandemic fatigue high, there was every reason to expect voters to punish the incumbent party with an above-average loss.
Yet the Democrats will certainly do better than that average; maybe substantially better. They may also hold the 50-50 tie in the Senate that gives vice-president Kamala Harris the casting vote. All told, Biden is a relieved man today and it's Republicans licking their wounds.
President Joe Biden's popularity is low, but not low enough to allow MAGA to inflict huge damage in the mid-term elections. Photo: AFP
Why didn't Republicans do better? Abortion is one answer. The Supreme Court decision to over-turn Roe v Wade and the abortion protection measures on some state ballots looks to have boosted turn-out amongst liberals.
But there also seems to have been something of a push-back against Donald Trump, his election-denying candidates and his MAGA movement as a whole. Out of 39 competitive races where Trump picked candidates, at least 14 lost. With about a third of those still to be counted that number of losses will grow.
One Trump adviser told ABC news"this is a sinking ship". Rupert Murdoch-owned media - previously big backers of Trump - have praised re-elected Florida governor Ron DeSantis and even mocked Trump as Trumpty Dumpty having taken a great fall in this election.
The truth is that Trump has been toxic for some time. I was in the US for the 2018 mid-terms and he cost Republicans seats then. He lost in 2020. And he's failed again here. The noise of his supporters sometimes drowns out the maths. The MAGA coalition has never been big and strong enough to win elections against anyone who doesn't have the surname Clinton.
These mid-terms have reinforced the analysis that while his base loves him, beyond that he's political poison. It's clear he motivates turn-out by opponents and exit polls showed that more than two-thirds of independents have an unfavourable view of him.
Why have Americans turned? I don't think they've suddenly woken up to his flaws or decided to make a moral stand. Having just been back in the US for the first time since 2018, the impression I got regarding Trump was a growing weariness, more than wariness. The sense that people are just over him. The bluster, the fuss, the outrage... it's all just getting exhausting.
Second gentleman of the United States Douglas Emhoff, Vice President Kamala Harris, and Los Angeles mayoral candidate Congressmember Karen Bass campaign at a Get Out The Vote event on the campus of UCLA on the eve of Election Day on November 7, 2022 in Los Angeles, California. Photo: DAVID MCNEW
And when the serious pressures of inflation and war are pressing down on a country, the sideshow that once entertained has grown tiresome for many.
In the blue corner, Biden may be old and with an approval rating of just 41 percent he's no fan favourite. But he's an entirely reasonable and decent man who is nothing like the monster Trump needs in office to spark voters' anger to the extent they look to Trump as a saviour.
So as America starts to exhale Trump, it's more with a sigh and a snore than with a shout or cheer.
Trump was the first Reality TV president (and hopefully the last). But like any TV show, his run seems to be coming to an end. To use language Trump will understand, voters are changing channel, looking for the new hit. He's last season's guy and with DeSantis (and others), the Republicans are starting to offer new season talent; people who don't come with the same old baggage that, frankly, is just getting boring.
None of this means Trump will go quietly. He has always been a servant of Trump, never a servant of his party or country. He's already ominously warns he knows more about DeSantis than anyone save the governor's wife. He will fight tooth and nail not to be seen as one of the great losers of presidential history. The damage he does in the process may be an unintended gift to Democrats in the 2024 presidential elections.
It's too soon to say for sure the Trump era is over. Comebacks happen. But voters have said several times now that the emperor has no clothes. And this time voices in and around the Republican Party seem to be daring to say the same. That's hard to come back from.
These mid-terms have the look of a moment where America's breathed out its Trumpish toxins. If so, the question then becomes 'what do they breathe in next?'