Updated at 1:50 P.M. E.S.T.

The Democrats are to be congratulated for skillfully managing the escape of most of their congressional and gubernatorial candidates from the opprobrium that has been justly earned by the incompetence of the Biden administration in almost every field and even from the misguided and duplicitous conduct of the Democratic congressional leadership.

Although the Republicans at time of writing appear to be on track to control the House of Representatives with a margin of four or five, expectations, even by many Democrats, of a much more severe setback have almost made the night look like a miraculous Democratic electoral Dunkirk evacuation from looming disaster.

The focus on the danger to democracy presented by the looming presence of Donald Trump was completely spurious, but it did succeed in convincing many that American greatness was an extreme notion. Yet the idea that democracy was in danger was exposed as the unmitigated fraud that it is by the smooth election process, including the hugely successful “Jim Crow” voting changes in Georgia.  

The entire electorate undoubtedly was confused by the tug-of-war between Mr. Trump and his opponents for the heart and mind of the Republican Party. This internecine scuffling was especially confusing because it was a tripartite contest with those who broadly support Mr. Trump in policy terms but are averse to him personally, and with the imperishable paleo-Republicans like Senator McConnell, silently pining for the halcyon days of Bush-McCain-Romney plain-vanilla ineffectuality.

At time of publication, control of the Senate is uncertain. It  seems to come down to close races in three states — Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada — of which Republicans must win two to gain control. In any case, the basic objective of evicting Nancy Pelosi and taking the House appears, by most estimates, to have been accomplished: the baneful Biden program is defunct, and he is a lame duck who will scarcely even twitch any more. He is so irrationally over-confident, President Biden may even imagine that his program has been endorsed.

The charge against Mr. Trump of supporting unelectable candidates because of what Senate McConnell called “candidate quality,” (i.e. lack of it), was not sustained in North Carolina or Ohio, but it was in Pennsylvania, and he and the Republicans would have done better if he had not made the great effort he did to campaign around the country, reassert control of the Republican party, and pack it with people indebted to him for their election. It was a bold move but it was not successful.

The anti-Trump Republicans were already shouting from the rooftops on several networks before midnight on Tuesday that if it had not been necessary to support the Vance Senate campaign in Ohio with more than $30 million that could have been spent elsewhere, it might have gone better for the Republicans.

On the other hand, the anti-Trump candidate for the Senate from Colorado, Joe O’Dea, was badly defeated; the ex-president is still first in the hearts of committed Republicans. In the circumstances, this is a first-class job of professional damage control by the Democrats.

They still appear to have lost the House, though, and perhaps the Senate, and the administration is just a care-taking operation unless Mr. Biden has a personality metamorphosis as profound as that of Ebenezer Scrooge after his reunion with Jacob Marley.

The biggest winner of all on the night was certainly Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis. On election night he gave by far the best speech I’ve ever heard him give and by defeating a former governor by more than 1.5 million votes, nearly 50 times his 2018 plurality, he established a very powerful claim to be the person uniquely able to carry forward the Trump program while sloughing off the negatives of the Trump personality.

I thought that President Trump had every right to demonstrate his popularity with the Republican rank-and-file, and in general I thought Dr. Oz and J.D. Vance and Kari Lake in particular, as accomplished people from non-political backgrounds were a welcome renovation to the roster of candidates and might broaden the appeal of the Republican Party that for decades was so hidebound in its apparent attachment to the much caricatured country clubs of prosperous suburban America. 

I have been one of those who felt that Mr. Trump deserves to be renominated and reelected because the 2020 election was undoubtedly a questionable result where there were so many millions of unsolicited mail-in ballots sent to voters that concerns were raised about possible ballot harvesting and the validity of returned ballots. A switch of only about 50,000 votes in three states would have changed the result, and the judiciary declined to consider any of the lawsuits launched on the constitutionality of the vote and vote counting changes that were not enacted by the state legislatures as the Constitution requires, and permitted an aberrant method of choosing the next president.

The treatment of Mr. Trump two years ago was made doubly odious by the airtight, locked-arms determination of the entire national political media to pretend that 2020 was an unquestionably pristine election, and the shameful campaign to portray the events of January 6 of last year as an attempted insurrection by the outgoing president. Mr. Trump has often been his own worst enemy but that does not excuse his real enemies from the infamies they have committed against him.

The time has come for him to consider, with an open mind, whether his, the Republican Party’s, and the nation’s best interests are served by his proceeding to seek the nomination and reelection, or by concluding that it is time for a gracious and statesmanlike gesture of de-escalation of national tensions and to hand the baton to whomever his party nominates who best espouses the principles and policies that he boldly conceived and largely enacted, and whose re-adoption the country desperately needs.

This would not be an abdication like Lyndon Johnson’s. He could almost certainly be renominated and probably be reelected. It is possible that he could do more for his own reputation as well as more for the country by encouraging the careers of the many very capable younger Republican officeholders and office seekers who are policy allies of Mr. Trump’s who were much in evidence on Tuesday night.

Governor DeSantis has probably established himself as the logical heir and this transition could still be managed with dignity, which would win Mr. Trump a general admiration that has been withheld from him.

It was particularly disappointing to see attractive young candidates like Tudor Dixon in Michigan and Tiffany Smiley in Washington go down to defeat; the Republicans did a fine job of recruiting very promising candidates around the country. This process must continue and they should all try again. 

If Mr. Biden imagines he has any vocation to be reelected, he is even more delusional than his customary public performances indicate. The Republican hour is coming and Donald Trump will eventually gain the credit he deserves for bringing it on and, to take a phrase from George Wallace, “shaking the Democratic Party by the eye-teeth.”

Mr. Trump is at a crossroads: he can announce victory and acclaim his successor, or fight to maintain his position and regain the headship of the country. They are both valid options and he should be deliberate in his appraisal of the best one to choose.

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This article was updated to reflect the most recent news about races that will determine control of the Senate.