Vice President J.D. Vance has weighed in on Tuesday night's bruising election results, claiming in a lengthy X post that the reason behind the Republican Party's devastation is that people who voted for Trump/Vance in 2024 voted for Democrats in the midterm, and that they did so because they were dissatisfied with the war with Iran, the United States' relationship with Israel, and felt there was a lack of focus on the cost of living/inflation.
Vance said the data analysts on the GOP side believed the Trump/Vance 2024 electorate was going to turn out to vote in the midterm, so the White House was optimistic. But Vance asked "the smartest data guy" he knows if that meant the GOP would "shock the world," meaning, buck the trend that the party holding the White House loses seats in the midterm election. Vance said that, according to that person, "the data is telling us that a lot of Trump/Vance 2024 voters are pissed and planning to vote for the other guys."
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. 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.
— JD Vance (@JDVance) November 4, 2026
He then said that "another pollster - one of the smartest people I know in politics - told me yesterday we’d lose the generic ballot by 13 points." And wouldn't ya know it, that unnamed pollster also found that Trump/Vance 2024 voters were dissatisfied and were going to vote for Democrats, but this pollster gave Vance a convenient list of things poll respondents said would make them vote for the GOP again. That list:
- End the war
- Focus on cost of living/inflation
- Put America First
- Change our relationship to Israel
Vance concluded that, "The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night." Yes, in a late-night call to Fox News' election desk, President Trump did say that the Iran war contributed to last night's losses, but he also placed a lot of blame on candidates who didn't do enough to help themselves or didn't know how to tell a compelling story about why people should vote for them.
President Trump told Fox News the Iran war contributed to Republican losses as Democrats seized control of Congress in the midterms, saying 'I think a part of it was Iran' https://t.co/6Jqz0elgMj https://t.co/E14tcaIaq4
— Reuters (@Reuters) November 4, 2026
That's not to say that the war in Iran wasn't a major factor, or that cost of living (especially at the pump) wasn't a major factor. According to exit polls, those were the issues most cited by voters as the reason for their vote. But it's not that they were totally against the war with Iran; they were against the length and the sustained high gas prices (emphasis mine):
For all of the things that will be written about this election, the bottom line is that Trump waged the kind of war he said he wouldn't get into — one that is dragging on, raising gas prices and piling on people who were already feeling the pinch — and now he is paying the price.
In Vance's estimation, the GOP has lost the Senate for six years as a result of this election — which could end up being true, but is a very bold prediction to make today — and blames that on people who supported taking out the mullahs, many of whom are not neocons. There's a solid core of Gen X conservatives who have wanted the mullahs handled for a very long time, in large part because of how many members of our generation were killed, maimed, or suffer from debilitating PTSD because of Iran's support of terrorism for the last 47 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. Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay. Agree or disagree, that's at least honest.
Trump seems to think it was worth it.
"I think it's largely true because it drove the gasoline up a little bit in the short term," Trump says when asked about Vance saying the Iran war is to blame for GOP losses. But he says he would do it again to stop Iran from having a nuclear weapon.
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) November 4, 2026
Even assuming that the data and polling showed these numbers and results (we have no way to check his assertions), to believe that the takeaway is that we shouldn't have bombed Iran or taken action to prevent them from having a nuclear weapon is absurd. The problem is that Trump told us in February that the war would only last for four to six weeks, and here we are in November still paying astronomical prices for gas and seemingly without a plan or an end date.
If the Vice President wants to blame the electoral losses on the war, then he should take some responsibility for the messaging, and for the failed ceasefire, which had the effect of just dragging things out.
Likewise, it seems that Vance is blaming the concerns about cost of living and inflation on the war, which is simplistic. Yes, gas prices soared this year because of it, but there's a heck of a lot more to that story, and the Republicans in charge — including Vance — did a piss-poor job of telling it, and have done a bad job with it since the administration took office, starting with tariffs. As Spencer Pratt said today, in an insightful thread on X:
It is 100% true that everything's too damn expensive, and we all know that inflated prices are always sticky. Does anyone know that it's entirely the result of shutting down the global economy over the flu and (both naive republicans and democrats) printing infinity dollars for several years? Nope...because nobody has effectively told that story, and it's an unsexy story to tell.
With projected growth of 5%, the economy right now is stronger than it's been in generations. Is that the story you hear? Nope. Is that the vibe you feel? Absolutely not, especially when every time you fill up your gas tank, it feels like a diesel enema.
At the end of his post, Vance said that he remained hopeful about our country and urged people who are angry about the election results to channel that anger into the work of saving our country. On that, we can all agree.