WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump again claimed Monday that Republicans who don’t support him and his claim that the 2020 election is stolen can’t win — despite multiple losses at the hands of high-profile GOP candidates he endorsed.
Pointing to Republican Trump critic Joe O’Dea’s defeat in the Senate race in Colorado, 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 for fighting MAGA,” Trump said in a statement.
O’Dea lost 14.6 percentage points to Democratic Senator Michael Bennet and underperformed only slightly in the state than Trump – who lost 13.5 percentage points in 2020 to former Vice President Joe Biden.
Weeks before Trump announced his run for president on Nov. 15, O’Dea told CNN he didn’t think the former president should run for the White House again because “we need to move the country forward.”
“You can’t win without MAGA!” said the former President.
Former President Donald Trump specifically called out Joe O’Dea and Don Bolduc.
Two Trump supporters listen to former President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign announcement.
“I believe that January 6th [2021 riot] was a black eye for the country,” O’Dea said. “I’ve been very vocal that I thought he should have done more to stop the violence from heading toward the Capitol.”
Instead, O’Dea said he would favor Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, or South Carolina Senator Tim Scott as Republican candidates in 2024.
Trump also called out Republican Senate nominee from New Hampshire Don Bolduc and blamed his loss to Democrat Maggie Hassan on his post-primary rejection of the former president’s “stop the steal” narrative.
“Likewise, candidates who delayed their ‘message’ after a big win in the primaries (Bolduc!) generally saw big losses,” Trump said Monday. “Will they ever learn their lesson?”
Bolduc lost 9.2 percentage points to Hassan, again only marginally underperforming Trump, who lost the Granite State to Biden by 7.4 percentage points.
Trump attacked O’Dea and Bolduc on Truth Social earlier this month for their lack of support, celebrating that “Joe O’Dea lost BIG!” and the claim that Bolduc would have “won easily” if he had “stayed strong and loyal” to the 45th president’s vote-fraud claims.
He did not concede that several high-profile candidates he endorsed also lost their midterm bids on Nov. 8, despite their continued loyalty, as Pennsylvania Senate nominee Dr. Mehmet Oz, and gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano, Michigan gubernatorial nominee Tudor Dixon, and Arizona Senate nominee Blake Meister.