Biggest Political Losers of 2023

It's been another tumultuous year in American politics defined by chaos within the House Republican caucus, the launch of an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden and above all the four indictments and potential political resurrection of former President Donald Trump.

Over the course of 2023 there have been plenty of winners and losers, ranging from the rise in prominence of vaccine sceptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to the sudden defenestration of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

Newsweek provides a summary of major figures in American politics for whom 2023 is likely to go down in the history books as a year to forget.

Ron DeSantis

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis began 2023 as a figure widely admired across the Republican Party. Leading to July 2022, his state was the fastest growing in the union, while a number of its most prominent Democratic-led counterparts actually shrank.

When DeSantis launched his bid for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination on May 24, via a rocky Twitter Spaces event co-hosted by Elon Musk, he was the clear second choice after Trump, with polling analytics website FiveThirtyEight showing he was the preferred candidate of 22.7 percent of GOP primary voters.

However, the next six months saw the erosion of DeSantis' support, as he came under relentless attack from Trump and his political allies, with FiveThirtyEight showing he was the preferred candidate of only 12 percent of Republican primary voters on December 19, with his hold on second place coming under threat from former U.N. Ambassador and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley.

Mike Pence

Former Vice President Mike Pence launched his own White House bid in June but failed to make his campaign take off and dropped out of the race four months later.

Pence struggled to land blows on his former boss, who deprived his rivals of any face-to-face confrontation by refusing to participate in any of the Republican debates, and never established himself as anything more than an also-ran.

Thomas Gift, a political scientist who heads the Centre on U.S. Politics at University College London, told Newsweek that the Republican candidates who attempted to snatch the 2024 presidential nomination from Trump were collectively the vanquished of 2023.

"To talk losers is to talk anyone who theorized that there was a lane for a non-Trump candidate in 2024," he said. "That's DeSantis, Pence, [Chris] Christie and virtually everyone else who has stepped foot on the Republican debate stage. Unless there's a seismic shift between now and Iowa and New Hampshire, that increasingly looks like a doomed exercise from the start."

Kevin McCarthy

In January, Kevin McCarthy was elected as House speaker following 15 grueling rounds, which saw him forced to make major concessions to a number of hard-right representatives. However the California Republican largely failed to stamp his authority on a deeply divided House Republican caucus, and in October was outed as speaker by a group of GOP rebels that voted with the Democrats to bring him down.

In an interview with Newsweek, professor Paul Quirk, who teaches politics at the University of British Columbia, argued that the House GOP, and even the Republican Party as a whole, could be viewed as losers of 2023.

"Various Republicans, groups of Republicans, and the party as a whole have surpassed prior standards of political failure and defeat," he said. "The House Republicans' unprecedented difficulties in electing and retaining a speaker of the House, their defeats on the debt-limit and budget measures, and their not-ready-for-prime-time impeachment skits are among the notable failures.

"Yet, the dire condition of the Republican party organizations in swing states—depleted and discredited by their failed efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election—may be even more important. Still, the most resounding and consequential failure is the Republicans' inability, thus far, to move past a twice impeached, prolifically indicted, cognitively impaired aspiring dictator in the selection of their presidential standard-bearer."

Joe Biden

Including Joe Biden on this list is likely to be controversial as in some ways the president had quite a good year. He is the overwhelming favorite to be the Democrats' presidential candidate again in 2024, facing a challenge from only fringe figures within his party, and is overseeing an economy that by the standards of major Western nations is performing strongly.

However, Biden's approval ratings have continued to fall, with just 37.8 percent of Americans approving of his performance in office on December 8 while 55.5 percent said they were dissatisfied, according to an FiveThirtyEight analysis. Concerns over Biden's age remain intense, with an ABC News/Washington Post poll conducted in May finding that 68 percent of Americans believe he is too old to serve a second term, at the end of which he would be 86.

House Republicans have launched a bid to impeach Biden, alleging he benefited improperly from the business interests of his son, Hunter Biden, though the president strenuously denies any wrongdoing. Hunter has been indicted in two criminal cases over claims he lied about being a drug user to obtain a firearm and avoided paying tax, though his lawyer insists he did nothing wrong.

Thomas Whalen, an American politics expert who teaches at Boston University, told Newsweek that Biden is the biggest loser of 2023.

"Despite presiding over a domestic economy that has produced record job numbers, booming corporate profits and lower inflation, the besieged president is getting the back of the hand from Americans of all stripes who feel he is too old and out of touch to deserve a second term," he said.

Donald Trump

Donald Trump became the first former American president to face criminal charges this year when he was indicted in four cases. He is accused of facilitating the payment of hush money to an adult film star, mishandling classified documents and breaking the law while attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election nationally and in Georgia. He has pleaded not guilty on all counts and insists the charges against him are politically motivated.

These events would surely have proved terminal to the career of most American political figures, but as ever, Trump appears to be the exception. During 2023, Trump established himself as the overwhelming favorite to secure the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, even if he could potentially have to run from prison, while a recent Marquette Law School poll put him on track to defeat Biden, 52 to 48.

"It seems improbable to say that a man who's stared down 91 criminal indictments has had a good 2023," Gift said. "Then again, Donald Trump is filled with ironies. By dint of where he's positioned right now, it's hard to think that Trump hasn't been the big political winner of the year."

So much of the "expert" class wrote off Trump after the riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, just like they did after Impeachment 1.0 and Impeachment 2.0. But look where he is now? He's absolutely dominating the Republican primaries, leading Biden in many polls, and potentially poised to retake the White House.

"That might be the comeback story of the century, if he'd ever gone away," Gift said. "But it was always the political elites who [optimistically] wrote Trump off. The truth is, Trump faces no natural Republican predators, and the GOP remains—as much as it ever has—the party of Trump."

George Santos

George Santos largely slipped under the radar when he was elected to represent New York's 3rd Congressional District, but that changed in 2023, when it emerged that the House Republican had fabricated much of his back story. Santos was accused of having lied about attending Baruch College, working for Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, and being the descendent of Holocaust survivors. In an interview with Piers Morgan broadcast in February, Santos admitted he had been "a terrible liar."

In May, Santos was charged with 13 offenses, including seven courts of wire fraud and three of money laundering, with an additional 10 charges added in October. He has denied acting illegally and pleaded not guilty on all counts.

On December 1, the House voted to expel Santos in a bipartisan vote, making him only the sixth lawmaker in American history to suffer this indignity.

Bob Menendez

In September, Democratic Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey was indicted on bribery charges following claims he improperly received hundreds of thousands of dollars to protect the interests of three businessmen, along with the government of Egypt. The indictment stated: "Over $480,000 in cash-much of it stuffed into envelopes and hidden in clothing, closets, and a safe-was discovered in the [his] home...Some of the envelopes contained the fingerprints and/or DNA of co-defendant making alleged bribes."

Menendez insisted he had done nothing wrong in a statement to Newsweek, saying: "Since this investigation was leaked nearly a year ago, there has been an active smear campaign of anonymous sources and innuendos to create an air of impropriety where none exists.

"The excesses of these prosecutors is apparent. They have misrepresented the normal work of a Congressional office."

Rashida Tlaib

In November, the House voted to censure Democrat Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, one of four left-wing members known informally as "the squad," over comments she made in response to Hamas' surprise October 7 attack on Israel that left 1,200 dead and another 240 kidnapped into Gaza.

She was accused of "promoting false narratives" about the attack and "calling for the destruction of the state of Israel," with particular criticism over her use of the slogan "from the river to the sea," which some view as a coded call for Israel's abolition.

Tlaib claimed the resolution was packed with "obvious lies," saying: "My criticism has always been of the Israeli government and [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu's actions. It is important to separate people and governments."

Eric Adams

New York City Mayor Eric Adams has been caught up in a number of scandals in 2023, raising questions about his political future.

In November, FBI agents raided the home of Brianna Suggs, the chief fundraiser for Adams' 2021 mayoral campaign, with The New York Times later reporting that the investigation focused on potential collusion with the Turkish government and illegal campaign donations from Turkish citizens. Adams later had his personal phones seized by the FBI, though there is no indication he is being investigated for wrongdoing.

Later that same month, under New York state's Adult Survivors Act, a woman filed a civil lawsuit accusing Adams of sexually assaulting her in 1993. A spokesperson for Adams said the mayor was unaware who the woman was, adding: "If they ever met, he doesn't recall it. But he would never do anything to physically harm another person and vigorously denies any such claim."

Adams has also broken sharply with progressive orthodoxy on immigration, which he warned "will destroy New York City" unless urgent action is taken. In September, he claimed that 110,000 migrants had arrived in the city in 2022, some of whom were sent by Republican state governors without coordination with New York officials.

Kari Lake

Kari Lake, who ran unsuccessfully in the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial election, suffered a string of legal defeats in 2023 when her attempts to overturn Democrat Katie Hobbs' victory were thwarted in court. Lake has repeatedly alleged, without providing solid evidence, that the contest was stolen from her by electoral fraud.

This month, the Arizona Supreme Court's Attorney Discipline Probable Cause Committee gave the green light for three of Lake's attorneys to face disciplinary proceedings over their involvement in her case, which she claimed shows that "no one is safe with this tyrannical government" in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

In October, Lake announced she is running for one of Arizona's Senate seats in 2024, potentially setting up a three-way battle against independent incumbent Kyrsten Sinema, a former Democrat, and a Democratic Party candidate.

United States Supreme Court

The U.S. Supreme Court made a number of controversial decisions in 2023, most notably striking down Biden's $430 billion student debt forgiveness plan in a 6-1 decision.

Whalen told Newsweek that he thinks the court is the runner-up as the biggest political loser of 2023, after Biden, saying: "After the earlier controversial Dobbs decision and the embarrassing conflicts of interest exhibited by judges Thomas and Alito, the high court's credibility has fallen lower than the value of cryptocurrency."