Vance targets the conflict
JD Vance blames the Iran war for the Republican Party’s defeat in the 2026 midterm elections. In a post on X on Wednesday morning, Vance wrote, "The reason we lost is the war." He noted that President Trump also acknowledged the conflict as a factor the previous night. Vance, who previously acted as the face of the administration’s negotiations with Tehran, seeks to distance himself from the conflict ahead of a potential 2028 presidential run. He told pollsters that Republican voters did not fail to cast ballots, but those who voted for Trump in 2024 turned against him this year. He argued that voters expressed anger over the Iran war, inflation, the cost of living, and US aid to Israel. Vance also challenged others to defend the loss of the Senate for the next six years. "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," Vance wrote.
Economic fallout and Trump’s defiance
President Trump called Vance’s statement "largely true" while maintaining that the conflict was a necessity. He told Fox News after the Tuesday results arrived that he would have done nothing differently regarding Iran. Trump said, "People agree with what I’m doing on Iran, but they really probably weren’t willing to do the short-term consequence of paying more for gasoline." He also claimed Republicans would have won easily if he were on the ballot. The war caused fuel prices to rise 3.7% in the year to September. Exit polls showed nearly 80% of voters said inflation caused them hardships, and 60% blamed Trump’s policies for the rising cost of living.
| Election Metric | Result |
|---|---|
| Senate Seats Lost by Republicans | 7 |
| House Districts Lost by Republicans | 25 |
| Governor Races Lost by Republicans | 5 |
| Fuel Price Increase (to Sept 2026) | 3.7% |
| Voters blaming Trump for inflation | 60% |
The Democratic wave
The election results handed control of both the US House of Representatives and the Senate to the Democrats; this outcome was a dramatic swing from the victory Trump secured two years ago when he won the presidency. Republicans lost seven Senators and 25 House districts. In Texas, James Talarico won the Senate seat by more than 10 points; this result marks the first time a Democrat won that seat since 1988. Kansas also saw a significant shift when Adam Hamilton defeated Roger Marshall with a 21-point swing. North Carolina saw Roy Cooper win the Senate seat after a 22-point swing to the Democrats. I find the loss in Texas particularly striking because the state has voted Republican in presidential elections for decades.
In Missouri, incumbent Republican Ann Wagner lost her second congressional district to a Democrat with 51.1% of the vote. This happened despite Republican efforts to redraw the district boundaries before the election. In Indiana, JD Ford beat Victoria Spartz with 51.7% of the vote and took a seat Republicans held for over 30 years, and I find the Republican failure to gain seats through redistricting quite obvious. The Democrats also won in Michigan, where Abdul El-Sayed defeated Mike Rogers. In Riley county, Kansas, where 42% of the population is under 30, the county saw a 19-point swing to the Democrats.
The Democrats gained more than 25 seats in the House of Representatives to take control and won almost all 40 races that the Cook Political Report classified as competitive. In North Carolina, every single county swung to the Democrats in the election. In Texas, the Senate race in Starr county saw a massive shift because 97% of the population is Hispanic or Latino. I find the discrepancy between the Republican redistricting efforts and the actual results in states like Texas and North Carolina quite telling.
