ON NOVEMBER 14, shortly before the networks called the Arizona governor's race for Democrat Katie Hobbs, Charlie Kirk, the 29-year-old conservative activist, asked a guest on his YouTube livestream what Republicans had missed.
Since moving to the state in 2018, Kirk and his organization, Turning Point USA, have become one of Arizona's biggest political power brokers, using the state party apparatus to elevate candidates who showed fealty to former President Donald Trump and purge those who did not. Turning Point had been a launch pad for Hobbs' opponent, the former local newscaster Kari Lake, and Kirk had for days been predicting an easy victory for the rising conservative star.
"The vibe on the ground was totally different than this, wasn't it?" he said, head on his hand, looking mystified.
His guest, Republican state Sen.
Wendy Rogers, was an unlikely source for self-reflection. Last year, she was censured by her colleagues after telling a gathering of white nationalists about her desire to hang "traitors" from "a newly built set of gallows." Like Lake, with whom she campaigned, Rogers was a vocal proponent of Trump's Big Lie who had called for state election officials to be paraded in "perp walks." But for once, Rogers was at a loss.
Republicans across the country expected a MAGA wave in the midterms.
A wave of election-denying governors and legislators and secretaries of state would sweep into office to control the election machinery and clear the path for Trump's comeback bid in 2024and get to the bottom of what really happened in 2020. Angry parents, fed up with "woke" education, would sign up for their culture war against trans kids and teachers unions. Ensconced in their own message boards and media, the party's leaders and candidates were convinced of both their righteousness and their own popularity.
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