If the Republicans’ election failure on Tuesday has a silver lining, it’s that it will persuade more of them that former President Donald Trump is a massive liability and turn them decisively away from him. That might compensate for the GOP’s inability to achieve even average midterm success despite facing an unpopular first-term president presiding over an economy in shambles.

But what happened? Why couldn’t Republicans take advantage of those ideal circumstances and tap into the demographics that seemed to be leaning their way? Because the blue party was able to depict the GOP plausibly as the party of Trump and so raise doubts about its fitness to govern. Astonishingly, independents split evenly rather than siding sharply against the incumbent, as historically they do.