Who Were the Biggest US Political Losers of 2023?

The rollercoaster of American politics had its winners and losers in 2023. Some of those who will look upon it as a year to forget did not fare well in the latest election cycles. Still others found themselves washed up on the political fringes over an array of embarrassing scandals.

Sputnik takes a closer look at some of the individuals that Fox News has dubbed the biggest washouts of the outgoing year.

It is no surprise if America’s oldest president and first octogenarian in the Oval Office will be eager to see 2023 fade in the rearview mirror. The US commander-in-chief, who is hoping to get reelected for a second White House stint in 2024, has been grappling with a plethora of woes. He may have tirelessly tooted the horn of his own "victories," such as his bipartisan infrastructure bill, or "Bidenomics," but the messages appear to have largely fallen on deaf ears of the American public.

First of all, he has faced dismal approval ratings over the past months. Biden is, in fact, a historically unpopular POTUS. His 39% approval rating in December 2023 is “the worst of any modern-day president heading into a tough reelection campaign,” according to the polling company Gallup. Furthermore, according to a poll from September, 77% of all voters, including 65% of Democrats, say they have concerns about 81-year-old, gaffe-prone Biden’s physical and mental fitness to hold office.

Persistently surging inflation, his administration’s support for the NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, the raging immigration crisis at the US-Mexico border, and scandals involving the shady business affairs of his son, Hunter Biden, have all contributed to disillusionment with Biden’s job performance. The US administration’s support for Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza has also been dragging Biden’s poll numbers down.

Earlier in December, House Republicans voted to formally authorize an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden. Specifically, the inquiry focuses on the business dealings of the Biden family, including Hunter Biden and the US president’s brother, James Biden, and the transfers to the US president’s bank account. Joe Biden has consistently claimed that he had no involvement in the dealings of his son or other family members.

Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) had a tough start to 2023, eventually managing to win the House speaker’s gavel after 15 rounds of voting spread out across three days. At the time, he had to make multiple concessions to the group of Republicans who opposed him, including a change to House rules that made it easier to remove the speaker. But fast-forward to mid-December, and he was already giving his final speech to the lower chamber of the US Congress.

McCarthy made history in October as the first ousted speaker of the House. "I loved every minute, good or bad," quipped the ex-speaker, removed after shepherding a spending bill that allowed the government to dodge a shutdown. Some Republicans accused McCarthy at the time of working with the Democrats on the bill.

The timeline of disgraced former Republican Rep. George Santos’ stint in the US House is steeped in scandal. Throughout the months that the freshman politician was the US representative from New York's 3rd congressional district (January to December 2023), he juggled blatant lies right and left regarding his ancestry, education, and work.

Even before he took office, Santos sparked controversy, including over the fact that he had falsified major parts of his resume. Thus, he claimed to be descended from Jewish Holocaust survivors (to which he replied he was Jewish) and to have attended Baruch College and worked for several major banks.

In May 2023, he was arrested on 13 charges of embezzlement and fraud that included wire fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds, and making false statements before Congress. George Santos was expelled by a two-thirds majority vote in the US House of Representatives on December 1, after a House Ethics Committee probe determined that there was substantial evidence of the lawmaker breaking federal law.

After months of hype in the media, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis unveiled his 2024 bid for the US presidency on the Republican ticket on May 24. The announcement came via a Twitter event co-hosted by Elon Musk, with the Florida governor vowing he would be running in order to "lead our Great American Comeback."

For a while, he appeared to be a second choice after Donald Trump, with polling analytics website FiveThirtyEight revealing he was preferred by 22.7 percent of GOP primary voters. But six months flew by, and the struggling candidate faced eroding support, with former UN Ambassador and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley – also in the running – breathing down his neck.

Former Vice President Mike Pence launched his White House bid in June. Pence's entry into the race meant facing off directly against his former boss – ex-President Donald Trump. Pence expressed his preference for an alternative to Trump in 2024, and suggesting that history would hold his old boss "accountable" for the unrest which took place at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. However, Pence was unable to make his campaign take off, finally dropping out of the race four months later, after a lackluster effort.

Democratic Michigan Congresswoman Rashida Tlaiba has come up against backlash over her comments in connection with the latest spiral of the Palestine-Israel conflict. Rep. Tlaib, one of the group of left-wing House Democrats loosely known as “The Squad” that also includes Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), Cori Bush (D-MO), and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), faced formal House censure along bipartisan lines in November. Specifically, Tlaib was rebuked for defending the slogan "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free," which the House resolution interpreted as "calling for the destruction of the state of Israel."

Jewish organizations have repeatedly slammed this phrase, oft-repeated at pro-Palestinian demonstrations, as anti-Semitic. The only Palestinian American in Congress dodged expulsion from the House, but stood accused of levying “unbelievable falsehoods about our greatest ally, Israel, and the attack on October 7.” Tlaib defended her stance, saying she “will not be silenced and I will not let you distort my words.”

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin was hailed as a rising political star when he pulled off a surprise victory in 2021 over former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, campaigning on issues like parents’ role in education and reduction of taxes. He was even touted by fans as a future potential presidential candidate.

“It's really humbling when people talk about 2024 and a national role for me… And I thank them, and then I reiterate that I've got a big job to do here in Virginia right now,” Youngkin stated in November. However, his ambitions have been stymied somewhat after Democrats succeeded in flipping the Virginia House of Delegates while retaining control of the state Senate. Western media reports speculated that a Republican victory in Virginia's elections would have prompted Youngkin to make a last minute entry into the 2024 fray.

Former Virginia Democratic candidate Susanna Gibson found her campaign for a swing seat in the House of Delegates derailed by a steamy sex scandal of her own making.

After being exposed, the woman had the gall to slam the revealed videos as “an illegal invasion of my privacy designed to humiliate me and my family.” Needless to say, Gibson lost the Richmond-area seat to Republican David Owen in November.

Four years after becoming Chicago’s first black and openly gay mayor, Democrat Lori Lightfoot failed to get the votes needed to be included in a runoff election in March. A surge in crime, along with a COVID-19 response that was praised by some but denounced by others hurt voters’ views on her. Lightfoot came out third in a field of nine candidates. The two leading candidates, Paul Vallas and Brandon Johnson, competed in a runoff election on April 4. Eventually, Brandon Johnson emerged victorious, while Lightfoot’s term ended on May 15.

This partial list of lackluster performers may potentially be viewed as a reflection of the challenging, uncertain, and divided state of today's US political landscape.