Mitch McConnell says Donald Trump's political influence has diminished

MADRID, 24 Dic. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The leader of the Republican minority of the United States Senate, Mitch McConnell, has affirmed that the political influence of former President Donald Trump "has diminished", which is why he has promised to find "quality candidates" for the Senate elections in 2024.

"This is what I think has changed: I think the political influence of the former president has diminished," McConnell said in an interview with NBC News.

According to the Republican leader in the Upper House, his party lost support in the midterm legislative elections because they needed to attract independent voters and moderate Republicans.

The "red wave" (in reference to the color of the Republican Party) that for weeks numerous members of the Republicans predicted for the 'midterms' due to the unpopularity of President Joe Biden, was diluted by the vision that many voters had about them as a party, according to McConnell.

"We lost the support we needed among independents and moderate Republicans, mainly related to the view they had of us as a party, much of it from the former president, that we were a bit nasty and prone to chaos," he told the aforementioned chain. .

"And interestingly, although that subset of voters did not approve of President Biden, in several cases they did not trust us enough to give us the majority we needed," he asserted.

Previously, McConnell has pointed out that his party was hampered in those elections by "weak candidates" in several of the states.

"We ended up having a quality (problem) of the candidates (...) Look at Arizona, look at New Hampshire and also a challenging situation in Georgia," stressed the leader of the Republican minority in the Senate, mentioning states in which the candidates Republicans were chosen by Trump, collected 'The Hill'.

"Our ability to control the results of the primaries was quite limited because the support of the former president turned out to be very decisive in these primaries, so, in my opinion, something better should have been done with the cards that were dealt," he said about the result in the Upper House.