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Opinion: It’s Groundhog Day for the GOP. Failure after defeat is becoming a Republican hallmark

File photo/Rebecca Noble/The New York Times / Former President Donald Trump and Blake Masters, a Republican candidate for Senate, shake hands at a campaign event in Mesa, Ariz., on Oct. 9, 2022. Masters lost his Senate race to the Arizona Democratic incumbent, Mark Kelly.
File photo/Rebecca Noble/The New York Times / Former President Donald Trump and Blake Masters, a Republican candidate for Senate, shake hands at a campaign event in Mesa, Ariz., on Oct. 9, 2022. Masters lost his Senate race to the Arizona Democratic incumbent, Mark Kelly.

By Kurt Bardella / The Los Angeles Times (TNS) 4 min read

A favorable map. Media narratives dissecting the uphill climb for Democrats. A Senate majority within sight.

But Republicans underperform and fail to win the Senate. A postmortem is ordered by the Republican National Committee.

Sound familiar?

If it feels like history is repeating itself, that’s because it is.

In 2012, the Republicans had everything going for them heading into the election — just as they did in 2022 — until the candidates who won primaries started talking, and it all went south.