Did Trump win or lose?

 Washington, DC

President Donald J. Trump thinks only in terms of winning and losing. On Tuesday, he won and he lost, which might muddle his pride. But any pain Trump feels at losing the House of Representatives, will be as nothing to the satisfaction he will feel at having gained seats in the Senate.

The Republicans have lost a significant number of House seats, and several governorships. But the 2018 midterm elections were not the Democratic ‘blue wave’ that prognosticators spent all last year anticipating. It was not a ‘shellacking’ — the word Barack Obama famously used in 2010 when his party lost 63 seats in the House and six Senate seats. In 1994, Bill Clinton lost 54 and eight. Both men won a second term two years later. America has not rejected Trumpism, then. On the contrary, the midterms have only proved how durable Trump’s working-class and rural coalition is. The Trumpist takeover of Republicanism is nearing completion: moderate, suburban Republicans are out, as are the Never Trumpers. Republicans who can get on with the President are in. The Republican party in the House of Representatives may now be the minority, but it is the Trump party now. It can win, too. The Democrats did well in many areas. Democratic women and racial minority candidates won in Republican strongholds, and in general, the more left-wing they were, the better they did. For the most-hyped new Democratic stars, however, it was a case of close but not enough. Beto O’Rourke, the handsome young gun in Texas, fell short. Andrew Gillum, the charismatic black Democratic candidate for Governor of Florida, also lost, though he did give an endearing speech about his grandmother’s olive oil. Worse still, for the defenders of what people call civility in politics, Trump’s crudeness worked.