Its fair to say Tuesday night's US midterm elections didn't go exactly as Donald Trump had planned.
While he wasn't on the ballot in the hundreds of races for House and Senate seats and Governor's mansions, he was there in spirit.
There was certainly an expectation that candidates with an endorsement from the Donald, or who ran on overtly MAGA tickets, would romp to victory in a widely predicted "red wave".
Trump, who after keeping his powder uncharacteristically dry for most of the race had ramped up his rally schedule in recent days, has been teasing a "very big announcement" to come on 15 November.
Riding on that red wave of incontrovertible evidence to republicans that they needed him in order to win, he was expected to reveal his plan to boot Biden out of office and Make America Great Again, again.
And now he has a decision to make.
The red wave never arrived.
The MAGA contingent didn't all lose, but the ex-President didn't have the Midas touch you'd expect for a man who uses so much gold in his decorating.
At the time of writing Trump-backed gubernatorial candidates in the rust-belt targets of Michigan, Wisconsin and Philadelphia all lost.
And it has - so far - been a similar story in the House and Senate, with just a handful of his favoured runners in key races getting elected.
If he announces on the 15th, the primaries just got a lot tougher for him. Republicans will perhaps start to realise that Donald J Trump has been a drag on their election ticket in the last three general elections - and even in 2016 he lost the popular vote.
Worse for Trump is that the man expected to be his chief Republican rival, Ron DeSantis held on to the Florida Governor's mansion with a landslide.
And that's despite Trump issuing a string of coded - and not so coded - attacks, and half-threatening to release unspecified harmful information about him should he decided 2024 is his year.
"I don't know if he is running. I think if he runs, he could hurt himself very badly. I really believe he could hurt himself badly," a clearly rattled Trump told Fox News.
"I don't think it would be good for the party."
Of course it's possible enough of the Grand Old Party is still in thrall to tge one-term commander in chief - but with mounting evidence of that hes a vote loser and a viable alternative ready and waitung - will thry risk it?
So Trump's next move is to decide which he wants to be remembered as: a quitter or (probably) a loser.
