Fox & Friends co-host Ainsley Earhardt appeared confused Wednesday morning after the GOP failed to have the “red wave” that was widely predicted.
Several high profile races that Republicans were hoping to flip have either been lost or not yet called. Republicans lost Pennsylvania’s gubernatorial and senate race, while Arizona, where former President Donald Trump endorsed Blake Masters for senate and Kari Lake for governor have not been called.
In Georgia, incumbent Gov. Brian Kemp won his re-election bid against Stacey Abrams for the second time. Georgia’s senate race, which has incumbent Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock facing off against Herschel Walker, has yet to be called, with Warnock pulling 49.4% of the votes compared to Walker’s 48.5%.
Kemp joined the program and said Republicans did fairly well in Georgia because they focused on “Joe Biden’s 40-year high inflation, disastrous domestic energy policy that’s led to high prices at the gas pump” as well as the border crisis. (RELATED: MSNBC Contributor Casts Doubt On Georgia Election: ‘We Can’t Say’ If It’s ‘Fair And Equitable’)
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“Those issued did prevail for you in the state of Georgia, they didn’t prevail for people around the country where we were expecting more of a red wave than we saw,” Earhardt said. “I don’t know if it was the polls were wrong, and we thought that because we would ask people ‘what is your main issue,’ everyone said inflation, in Atlanta they were saying crime, in New York City they were saying crime. Why didn’t those issues – was this more just pure partisanship? Did all those issues take a back seat?”
Kemp said he doesn’t believe the issues took a back seat but that he hadn’t had time to look at other races nationwide.
Democrats focused their messaging heavily on abortion and democracy while Republicans centered their efforts on inflation and the economy. Polls indicated voters were likely to vote Republican, with a recent Morning Consult/Politico poll finding 93% of voters were concerned with inflation and three out of four Democrats said the economy would play a role in their voting decision. The poll had also found 46% of voters trusted Republicans in Congress to handle inflation while just 37% trusted Democrats.
CNN’s Chris Wallace said Tuesday prior to the votes coming in that Democrats were disillusioned by the role abortion would play in the midterms and said Democrats didn’t address the priorities of voters.