WASHINGTON, D.C. Nov. 20 (DPI) – The 2018 midterm elections were hardly a slam dunk for Democrats, but the nation’s political winds – as of today, at least – suggest that Republicans will have to turn away from Trump in 2020 and field a less strident and less divisive presidential candidate if they want to keep the White House.

That’s according to many DC insiders, who articulate the same message:  The Trump base is shrinking, Trump himself isn’t being taken seriously by the rest of the world, and Trump will be dogged by whatever findings the Mueller investigation ultimately produces. Those factors may likely drive, they say,  such leaders as Sen. Mitch McConnell and Sen Lindsey Graham to turn away from Trump as 2020 approaches.

In the past year McConnell has deftly controlled the levers of power on Capitol Hill,  delivering key GOP victories that include two Supreme Court appointments and a landmark tax cut.  Graham, too, helped push Brett Kavanaugh onto the highest court in the face of a tough opposition from Democrats.

But Republicans are well aware that key suburban constituencies abandoned GOP candidates in this month’s elections, a major factor in the GOP losing their majority in the House of Representatives.

Meanwhile, the press is introducing new political personalities to the national stage: The newly elected Republican Senator from Missouri, Josh Hawley, is only 38 years old and a product of Stanford and Yale. He’s being pitched as an “intelligent Republican.” And a Democratic Maryland congressman by the name of John Delaney announced his plans to run for president in 2020. Delaney is a self-made businessman and not exactly a prototype of the Democratic Party machine.