Extract from ABC News
Darline Graham was beaten in this week's midterm elections despite having president's support. (Reuters: Sam Wolfe)
In late July, US President Donald Trump lionised Republican Senator Lindsey Graham's life in a touching eulogy at the National Cathedral in Washington DC, describing him as a "fixture of American politics" and a "force to be reckoned with".
"He was a man who gave America the full measure of his good and mighty heart, until that heart itself just gave out," the president said.
His death was sudden, unexpected, and created a problem for Republicans.
President Trump made a captain's call: he wanted Darline Graham, Lindsey's younger sister, to not only temporarily fill her brother's seat in South Carolina but run for election in November's midterms.
"I asked Darline, for the Good of our Nation, to run for the US Senate," the president wrote on Truth Social.
"I hope Darline does this, in that there would be nobody better to honour the legacy of her beloved brother, Lindsey.
"RUN, DARLINE, RUN!"
Senator Lindsey Graham died earlier this year. (Reuters: Kenny Holston/The New York Times/Pool)
With the backing of the president, and her brother's legacy, she seemed a frontrunner to win.
But, like so many Republicans discovered on Tuesday, support from the president did not provide the same boost as it once did.
Ms Graham lost, with a state Mr Trump won by double digits just two years ago turning blue for the first time in decades.
"As you all know this has been a very difficult few months, I lost my dear brother Lindsey and one of South Carolina's greatest leaders in July," a tired and dejected Ms Graham told supporters on Tuesday night.
"I would trade this all a thousand times over to have my brother back but God had a different plan."
The midterm election results were devastating for Donald Trump's Republican Party. (Reuters: Umit Bektas)
Ms Graham's defeat revealed a problem across the board in this week's midterms.
Analysts have identified Mr Trump's insistence on choosing unqualified candidates, including a grieving sister, who had never run for public office, as being among the reasons the Republicans got thumped.
In Texas, Mr Trump endorsed scandal-prone state attorney-general Ken Paxton over veteran senator John Cornyn.
Mr Paxton lost badly, and for the first time in almost four decades the state sent a Democratic Senator to Washington DC.
In Iowa and North Carolina, Republican senators who stood up to Mr Trump were threatened by the president's allies. Both men decided to retire. The vacancies they left were vulnerabilities, and the Democrats flipped both states.
Lindsey Graham initially opposed Mr Trump and was one of the president's most vocal critics during the GOP primaries in 2016.
Less than a year later, however, the late senator got on board with the MAGA movement and became a vocal defender of the president's agenda.
These days, it is clear the brand is badly damaged.
Is this the beginning of the end for Trump's MAGA movement?
Ben Williams thinks the midterms should spell the end of the MAGA movement. (Supplied: Ben Williams)
Texas Young Republican Ben Williams hopes so.
"I think we should leave Trump far, far behind," the 26-year-old policy analyst for the Austin Young Republicans told the ABC.
"Leave behind his tariffs, leave behind his geopolitics, leave behind his rhetoric. We need people who are much less divisive."
As the party engages in soul-searching and finger-pointing over its drubbing by the Democrats, Mr Williams said it should reflect not just on its poor candidate selection, but on its failure to listen to young conservatives' concerns.
In the lead-up to the elections, pollsters warned the Republican Party's support among young men was cratering, in large part due to the Iran war and rising costs.
But Mr Williams said their voices had been ignored and their complaints had been ridiculed by Mr Trump and other party leaders.
"They screwed over the Republican base, they screwed over young men, young people in general, and this is what happens when they do that."
A stand-out moment in the blame game came when Vice-President JD Vance used X to say the Iran war was responsible for Republicans' poor fortunes.
His lengthy post has been fuelling talk about how hard Mr Vance will now try to distance himself from Mr Trump ahead of a possible run for president in 2028.
"This long post was kind of throwing Donald Trump under the bus," North Carolina State University (NC State) political scientist Steven Greene said.
JD Vance is commonly touted as the Republican Party's next presidential candidate. (Reuters: Eduardo Munoz)
Mr Williams described Mr Vance's post, which also named inflation and Israel as factors, as "excellent".
But he had more praise for outgoing Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who used a press conference to flay Republicans' midterms strategy for focusing on poor priorities, such as transgenderism, and ignoring the concerns motivating voters.
"I think he's probably going to run for president," Mr Williams said of Mr DeSantis, "and I'm certainly going to back him."
Mr DeSantis ran against Mr Trump for the nomination in 2024, but dropped out after the Iowa caucuses, when it was clear his chances of winning were extremely low.
Ron DeSantis ran for the Republican Party's 2024 presidential nomination, which was won by Donald Trump. (AP: Mark Schiefelbein)
Mr Vance is widely seen as the favoured 2028 nominee, though Mr Trump said "maybe he won't run" when asked about the likelihood on Wednesday. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is also considered a contender.
But some analysts say the election result shows the Trump brand is so damaged that members of the current administration like Mr Vance and Mr Rubio would be risky choices.
For that reason, Mr DeSantis could be the party's smartest option, Professor Greene said. (At his press conference, Mr DeSantis said he would "cross that bridge when we come to it" when asked if he was considering a 2028 run.)
Steven Greene says Ron DeSantis could be the Republican Party's most viable choice for its 2028 candidate for president. (ABC News: Brad Ryan)
"From my perspective, if the Republicans have any sense, they will nominate a governor," Professor Greene said, adding that Utah's moderate Republican Governor Spencer Cox could also be a viable alternative.
"Far and away, the most viable future for the Republican Party right now has to come out of the states and not out of Washington DC. It has to come from somebody not closely associated with the Trump administration."
Two years out, though, not all experts agree. Fellow NC State political scientist Andrew Taylor said he saw Mr Rubio as a favourite to win the nomination.
"I suspect he's sort of positioned well enough between lanes," he told a post-midterms forum he co-hosted with Professor Greene. But he added it was too early to make a confident prediction.
Texas senator Ted Cruz, who has also hinted at a 2028 presidential run, posted his own lengthy analysis on Wednesday, local time.
He said too many Republicans had dismissed voters' genuine cost-of-living concerns.
"Understandably, people were pissed off, and elected Republicans didn’t do enough to address their very real pain," he wrote.
The president has continued to blame the midterms result on his absence from the ballot, despite polls that show many voters cast ballots to express dissatisfaction with his performance.
While Mr Trump continues to enjoy support in much of the US, and his endorsement still carries huge influence among the party's MAGA faithful, this weeks results show it can also backfire.
Analysts point out JD Vance distancing himself from the president since the midterm results came in could be evidence of that.
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