As much as President Trump’s presence was felt across the midterm elections landscape, Republicans doing their traditional post-election analyses might do well to remember that Mr. Trump wasn’t on any ballot.

Following a sweep that delivered Democrats the first trifecta in Michigan in 40 years, the state GOP released a post-mortem analysis memo focusing, in part, on Mr. Trump’s influence.

The memo recounted a “power struggle” among Republican donors who did not want to back some of Mr. Trump’s hand-picked candidates for down-ballot races like attorney general and secretary of state.

There was more at play, though, than just Mr. Trump’s attempts to play kingmaker in the state, the memo said.

“At the end of the day, high quality, substantive candidates and well-funded campaigns are still critical to winning elections,” the memo stated. “We did not have a turnout problem — middle-of-the-road voters simply didn’t like what Tudor [Dixon] was selling,” referring to the GOP gubernatorial candidate.

In the wake of a lackluster performance from Republicans, many GOP higher-ups and conservative press outlets have been quick to blame Mr. Trump. The GOP’s midterm problems this cycle, however, go beyond the influence of the 45th president.

Michigan stands as perhaps the starkest example of Republican failures this cycle, and provides an insight into how the GOP failed to capitalize on its midterm opportunity.

Before Ms. Dixon, a political newcomer, clinched the nomination, the state’s first gubernatorial frontrunner, businessman Ryan Kelly, was arrested for knowingly engaging in disorderly conduct and violence in restricted buildings during the January 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol.

After surging in the polls, he was then disqualified alongside four other Republican candidates for submitting thousands of fraudulent signatures on his petition — all while parroting Mr. Trump’s assertions that the 2020 election was illegitimate.

This, alongside an endorsement from Mr. Trump, propelled Ms. Dixon to the nomination, and she promptly made a name for herself as an abortion hardliner, supporting bans on abortion even for victims of rape or incest.

The missteps in Michigan were repeated elsewhere around the country as Republicans nominated candidates heavily associated with restricting abortion rights, as well as at least 291 candidates who said the 2020 election was stolen.

Such positions are unpopular with the 62 percent of Americans who say they support Roe v. Wade, according to Pew Research, and the 60 percent who rejected claims that the 2020 election was stolen, according to a Redfield and Wilton Strategies poll.

Those were not the only unpopular positions on  the Republican platform. Republicans stand firmly against unions at a time when 71 percent of Americans report having a positive view of them, per a 2022 Gallup poll.

The GOP also opposed raising the minimum wage at a time when Hart Polling shows that 75 percent of Americans support doing so, including 53 percent of Republicans and 60 percent of small-business owners.

If Republicans are looking for reasons why middle-of-the-road voters didn’t want what they were selling, re-examining some of their positions that are known to be unpopular could be a place to start.

A political scientist at John Jay College, Brian Arbour, says that Republicans are more likely to simply abandon certain issues than reverse their positions.

“It’s less likely to be that they’ll change their position than they’ll alter what issues they emphasize and talk about,” he tells the Sun. “The best I can tell is that they’ve abandoned their opposition to gay marriage and I don’t think they changed their opinion on that.”

Concerning the area Mr. Trump’s influence made the most difference this cycle — during the nomination process — it’s worth remembering what President Obama said of Mr. Trump’s popularity in 2018: that he is “a symptom, not a cause.”

What Mr. Obama was referencing is that Mr. Trump won the nomination because he was popular; he didn’t become popular because he was the nominee.

Regardless of whether the Republican primary electorate’s appetite for Mr. Trump and Trump-like candidates will be tempered by this midterm flop will soon be tested, as he is expected to announce for 2024 on November 15 and polls will surely follow.

In Mr. Arbour’s opinion, the GOP’s perennial trouble with candidate selection will continue through and beyond 2024 based on historical precedent.

“In general Republican voters are less receptive to these arguments than are Democratic voters,” he says in reference to talk about candidate quality and electability — “that’s part of why Joe Biden’s president.”

Mr. Arbour added that he’ll continue to assume that Messrs. Biden and Trump will be their respective partys’ nominees until there is concrete information saying otherwise.