From a New York Times story by Jonathan Weisman headlined “Trump’s Don’t-Blame-Me Calculus”:

Cascading midterm losses rippled from east to west — Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, Washington. Recriminations from fellow Republicans poured in. A rival’s star continued to rise in Florida.

Yet when Donald J. Trump stepped onto the flag-bedecked stage at his gilded Palm Beach palace on Tuesday evening to declare that he would run for president again, it was as if none of it had happened.