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Posted on 11/04/2026 8:50:59 AM PST by Miami Rebel
Vice President JD Vance offered a postmortem on Wednesday morning explicitly blaming President Donald Trump’s war in Iran for the GOP’s generational wipeout in the midterm elections, losing races from Texas to Kansas in deep red states.
Vance, who is widely seen as Trump’s heir apparent, saw his stock drop in prediction markets as Trump administration outsider Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R) numbers rose following the disastrous election results.
As Vance works to distance himself from the war in Iran, he notably cited Trump himself, writing, “The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night.”
“One of the things the data analysts on our side obsessed over was ‘composition’—whether the electorate looked close enough to 2024 for Republicans to win. And despite polls that showed a Democrat blowout, the data kept on telling us the same story: in some states turnout was merely OK, in other states it was downright amazing, and in no state was it catastrophic. There was a genuine sense of optimism on our team: our people were showing up,” Vance began in his lengthy post, adding:
So, I asked the smartest data guy I know, does that mean we’re going to shock the world? “No,” he told me. “We might do better than the polls suggest. But the data is telling us that a lot of Trump/Vance 2024 voters are pissed and planning to vote for the other guys. Our voters are turning out, but they may not vote for us.”
Well, that looks prophetic now. Our voters did show up. In Florida, for example, the electorate was 9 points more Republican than Democrat, just a couple points worse than 2024. Undoubtedly there were places we could have done better on turnout. But the main problem is not turnout. The main problem is that many people who voted for Trump/Vance in 2024 voted for Democrats in 2026.
There will be a lot of infighting and arguing over what happened and why that is. One of the pollsters I really respect told me that our economic messaging wasn’t sharp enough down the stretch. I’m sure that’s true.
But the real reason we lost is obvious to almost everyone.
Another pollster—one of the smartest people I know in politics, told me yesterday we’d lose the generic ballot by 13 points. I felt negative going into Tuesday, but even I was shocked by this. In his polling, he saw that a lot of Trump 2024 voters were angry and planning to vote for Democrats. He asked those voters who had abandoned us what would cause them to come back on our team. The top four answers, accounting for nearly all of the responses were:
1) End the war 2) Focus on cost of living/inflation 3) Put America First 4) Change our relationship to Israel
Our voters showed up. And the above four reasons are why many of them voted for Democrats. This is according to a pollster who nailed the results. While many spent Monday attacking Rachel Campos Duffy for calling for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, it turns out her political advice was sound. (She’s also a great person.)
In the next few months, there’s going to be a lot of gaslighting. Expect to hear any number of establishment politicians say the solution to our woes is amnesty. I’m open to the idea that we should change enforcement—by focusing more on businesses that hire illegal labor, for instance. But anyone pushing amnesty is lying to you.
The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night.
If you’d like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so. Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay. Agree or disagree, that’s at least honest.
But everyone knows why we lost. And any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there.
I remain hopeful about our country. To the people who are pissed off and want to say, “I told you so:” you’re right, you did tell us so. Take that energy into electing Republicans who share your worldview. To the people who are just pissed at the results, you should be. Let’s take that anger and get back to the work of saving our country.
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No one asked Vance for a public post mortem and it was inappropriate for him to offer one.
More to the point, if he thinks that distancing himself from the administration will boost his chances for the nomination in '28, he's grossly mistaken.
Leave it to Mediaite to pull such a false headline like that out of their ass.
What JD said is true. To a point.
We didn’t lose the midterms due to the war. We lost because the party in control always loses the midterms.
But... Trump’s War certainly increased the levels of our loss.
And so yeah. We’re pissed.
Vance hit the nail on the head.
Trump set the maga movement back with one solitary decision. That is to attack Iran before midterms.
Agree...DeSantis should move to South Carolina.
“We lost because the party in control always loses the midterms.”
Not like this.
A Midwest sweep perhaps would be within the norms, but South Carolina. Kansas. Texas. Maybe even MISSISSIPPI!!
Bull
This is a quote from Vance:
“ “The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night. If you’d like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so. Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay. Agree or disagree, that’s at least honest. But everyone knows why we lost,””
And you didn't listen, or maybe you just don't really care. After all, it's a big club, and the republican'ts are most decidedly in it. Republican voters? Not so much.
Politics is all about building coalitions.
Trump had the winning coalition in 2024, but he blew it with Iran.
Now let’s see if the Rats can keep this coalition together.
If only he spoke up when it still mattered. It takes no courage or leadership to say that today. This is typical politician angling and people are done with it. Go away now JD.
“4) Change our relationship to Israel”
More than 60% of Americans now have a negative opinion of Israel. If Republicans stay on the Zionist bandwagon, we won’t just lose the midterms but we’ll lose the presidency in ‘28 too.
Why is no one talking about the need to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon that apparently they were almost a few weeks away from obtaining and our bombing obliterated that threat?
Something that needs to be highlighted in blazing light is the fact that the USA has no boots on the ground in Iran. We’re occupying no territory. We are not regime changing a country or spending billions on that countries infrastructure. We dropped some bombs and launched some missiles. We sailed some ships through the straight.
What that means is the entire commitment in Iran can basically end tomorrow. In 2 years Iran is Old news.
Something that needs to be highlighted in blazing light is the fact that the USA has no boots on the ground in Iran. We’re occupying no territory. We are not regime changing a country or spending billions on that countries infrastructure. We dropped some bombs and launched some missiles. We sailed some ships through the straight.
What that means is the entire commitment in Iran can basically end tomorrow. In 2 years Iran is Old news.
Correction: DeSantis 2028.
Because the nuclear threat argument has never been adequately presented to the American public.
The system has to change.
Few on the right are calling for abandoning Israel, bur from here on Israel must provide evidence that Iran (the case now), or Syria (when Obama was preaisent), etc, has chemical weapons or nukes, or is getting close to them.
Real evidence.
Not lying claims (as was rhe case about WMD’s in Iraq) from Netanyahu before Congress that were false.
No more of 34 years now of saying Iran ia close to a nuke.
Bring the evidence before Americans, before the UN, allow BRICS nations and the west to see it.
Otherwise if Israel attacks Iran or wants the U.S. to join in they are on their own.
Vance needs to run away from Trump’s war policies as fast as he can.
If he doesn’t do that quickly….he stands no chance a year from now.
We are likely only 12 months from the first debates. The primaries start in Jan’28.
Vance just removed himself from the everything. Republicans who hate Trump are always hated. This kind of sniveling is admired by no one. What does he have his degree in. He’ll have to pursue that .
He is also wrong. Thune is the reason the republicans lost. And the RNC. And the Trump hating candidates who obstruct Trump
Voters do not care that there are Navy carriers in gulf. They are told that they care and they repeat it to sound smart. They are uninformed. And now very poorly educated.
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