WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump again claimed Monday that Republicans who don’t support him and his claim the 2020 election was stolen cannot win – despite several losses by high-profile GOP candidates he endorsed.
Pointing to Republican Trump critic Joe O’Dea’s loss in Colorado’s Senate race, the 76-year-old former president said, “you can’t win without MAGA!”
“Joe O’Dea lost his race in CO by over 12 points because he campaigned against MAGA,” Trump said in a statement.
O’Dea lost to Democrat Sen. Michael Bennet by 14.6 percentage points, performing only slightly worse in the state than Trump — who lost to former Vice President Joe Biden by 13.5 percentage points in 2020.
Weeks before Trump announced his candidacy for president Nov. 15, O’Dea told CNN he didn’t think the former president should make another run for the White House because “we need to move the country forward.”
“I believe that the Jan. 6 [2021 riot] was a black eye on the country,” O’Dea said. “I’ve been very vocal that I thought he should have done more to keep the violence from heading towards the Capitol.”
Instead, O’Dea said, he’d prefer Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley or South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott to be the Republican nominee in 2024.
Trump also called out New Hampshire Republican Senate candidate Don Bolduc, blaming his loss to Democrat Maggie Hassan on his post-primary rejection of the former president’s “Stop the Steal” narrative.
Trump claims Colorado Senate hopeful Joe O’Dea lost because “he campaigned against MAGA.” Getty Images“Likewise, candidates who shifted their ‘messaging’ after winning big in the Primaries (Bolduc!) saw big losses in General,” Trump said Monday. “Will they ever learn their lesson?”
Bolduc lost to Hassan by 9.2 percentage points, again only performing slightly worse than Trump, whose lost the Granite State to Biden by 7.4 percentage points.
Trump lashed out at O’Dea and Bolduc on Truth Social for their lack of support earlier this month, celebrating that “Joe O’Dea lost BIG!” and claiming Bolduc “would have won, easily,” if he “stayed strong and true” to the 45th president’s election fraud claims.
He did not acknowledge that multiple high-profile candidates he endorsed also lost their midterm bids Nov. 8 despite their continued loyalty, such as Pennsylvania Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz and gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano, Michigan gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon and Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters.
