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With help from Joanne Kenen

LOSS LEADER — For former President Donald Trump, the last two days have been a slow bleed. He’s been assigned a healthy portion of the blame for the GOP’s disappointing midterm election results, exposing him to unaccustomed intraparty criticism as he tees up a 2024 run.

It’s turned the post-election period into a primary within the 2024 GOP primary — a contest that will shape the race long before the early states vote. It will determine which candidates challenge him — if any — and what messaging they’ll use to make their case.

Trump, of course, continues to have an iron grip on the party base. His ability to generate energy at the grassroots level is unparalleled. But the Republican case against renominating him is strong, given his track record. The GOP lost the House, Senate and White House on his watch. This year, his endorsements saddled the party with a collection of ill-suited candidates who blew golden opportunities for GOP gains. The “candidate quality” issue that Republicans are wringing their hands about? It’s essentially a euphemism for Trump-backed candidates.

Onetime ally Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor, framed it this way to the Associated Press: “We lost in ‘18. We lost in ’20. We lost in ’21 in Georgia. And now in ’22 we’re going to net lose governorships, we’re not going to pick up the number of seats in the House that we thought and we may not win the Senate despite a president who has a 40% job approval,” Christie said. “There’s only one person to blame for that and that’s Donald Trump.”

GOP Sen. Pat Toomey referred to losses in Pennsylvania and elsewhere as “the debacle that he’s responsible for to some degree.” Former GOP House Speaker Paul Ryan made similar points, referring to Trump Wednesday as “a drag on our ticket.” Even a newly elected Republican congressman told CNN today the Republican Party needs to "move forward" from Trump.

The data out of Tuesday didn’t show much support for another Trump bid, particularly in the states that will matter most in 2024. Exit polls in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania put his unfavorable rating at 58 percent — making him even less popular than Joe Biden, who was underwater himself in those states. In Michigan — the third state of the Rust Belt trifecta that powered Trump’s election in 2016 — voters repudiated Trump’s endorsees up and down the ticket as part of a Democratic romp.

Even in Florida, a state Trump carried twice and the site of a stunningly strong GOP performance in the midterms, voters showed little interest in seeing the former president run again. Asked if they wanted Trump to run again in 2024, 60 percent said no, compared with 33 percent who said yes.

Trump’s been in this position before. The question is whether this moment is following a familiar script — like the Access Hollywood scandal or the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, both of which generated a spasm of GOP criticism, followed by party-wide capitulation — or is something different.

The rise of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who led an Election Day rout at the top of the Florida ticket in a state with 30 electoral votes, complicates Trump’s ability to bulldoze through his current predicament. Already, betting and prediction markets have sized up the situation and made a snap determination, shifting their 2024 presidential odds from Trump as the favorite for the GOP nomination toward DeSantis.

Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at [email protected]. Or contact tonight’s author at [email protected] or on Twitter at @PoliticoCharlie.

— Musk’s Twitter chaos brings sharp FTC warning: Elon Musk’s Twitter came under sudden and unusual fire from the Federal Trade Commission in Washington today, after a chaotic 24 hours in which new subscription rules triggered a raft of fake “verified” accounts, and key privacy and security executives quit. Wednesday night’s rollout of a new policy in which Twitter users could purchase “blue check” verifications for $8 a month uncorked a wave of bogus accounts, each bearing a blue “verified” check, impersonating a swath of public figures — Trump, George W. Bush, Rudy Giuliani, Biden.

— Trump Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke wins Montana House race: Trump administration Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke will represent Montana in Congress next year, returning to Washington four years after his scandal-plagued tenure as a Cabinet secretary ended in resignation. Zinke will represent Montana’s 1st Congressional District, which covers the state’s western half, by virtue of his victory over Democrat Monica Tranel. The district, which Montana gained this year after reapportionment based on the 2020 census, was considered the more competitive of the state’s two House races.

— Jan. 6 defendant who posted violent diatribes granted pretrial release: A federal judge today ordered the release of Jan. 6 defendant Ryan Nichols, whose violent tirades amid the mob and deployment of OC spray against police landed him in pretrial detention for the last 20 months. U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Hogan — who had initially ordered and repeatedly upheld Nichols’ incarceration — said he still considers Nichols a danger to the community, the reason he ordered him jailed in the first place. But he said Nichols’ current confinement at a detention facility in Rappahannock, Va., had made it impossible for him to access digital evidence in the case that he needs to prepare for trial next year.

ALL ABOUT THE MONEY — NATO’s chief predicted the U.K. will continue to “lead by example” on defense spending, even as Britain grapples with a crisis in its public finances, writes Cristina Gallardo.

Speaking to the press during a visit to No.10 Downing Street Wednesday, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg praised new U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his government over its “strong support” for the trans-Atlantic alliance.

Sunak’s predecessor Liz Truss committed to increase defense spending to 3 percent of GDP by 2030. But Sunak — whose government took office facing an economic crisis and a multibillion-pound black hole in the public finances — has not said whether he will stick to that pledge as his ministers seek savings.

Asked by POLITICO whether he felt reassured by the U.K.’s defense spending plans amid fears the government might need to scale back its commitments, Stoltenberg said he was “absolutely confident that the United Kingdom will continue to lead by example” on this area.

SAFE HARBOR — What in the world is Mastodon? As Twitter goes through turmoil, some users are leaving the app and looking for a new home. Mastodon might not be capable of being that place — what could be? John Herrman reports for New York Magazine.

ACA’S QUIET SUCCESS — The enrollment season for the Affordable Care Act began on Nov. 1. And you may have heard little or nothing about it, Joanne Kenen, Commonwealth Fund journalist-in-residence at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, emails Nightly.

Other than the out-of-nowhere, last-minute pledge to repeal Obamacare from Arizona GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake (and governors can’t repeal Obamacare, not that it really matters here), the long-controversial 2010 health law is now ... not controversial. It’s just part of U.S. health care.

The Biden administration has strengthened it, expanding subsidy eligibility and making it more affordable for low-income people. Four out of five people can find an option for less than $10 a month, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which runs the ACA.

And — even if many of us aren’t seeing or hearing much about open enrollment — multimedia, multilingual outreach is underway to people who are covered or who aren’t currently getting an ACA plan but are eligible for coverage, said Ellen Montz, who runs the CMS office that oversees the ACA. In addition, CMS is investing nearly $100 million to expand “navigator” services — which is what it sounds like, assistance for people trying to find the best health plan option for them, particularly in underserved communities. The Trump administration had slashed those assistance programs.

Insurers taking part in the Obamacare markets must now also offer a “standardized” option — meaning it’s easier for people to understand and comparison shop. And of course, HealthCare.gov, the rickety website that nearly tanked then-President Barack Obama’s signature domestic achievement back in 2014, has worked seamlessly for several years.

Like we said — a big yawn.

But about 14 million people are now covered in ACA plans (and another 21 million in ACA Medicaid expansion). And in uncertain economic times — if there is in fact a recession in our future — people who lose jobs (and their insurance) will have a way to get covered. Maybe not so boring after all.