Republicans have started laying the blame after Democrats won almost everywhere in the midterm elections, delivering stunning losses for the GOP in a sharp rebuke of President Donald Trump and his party. Democrats ousted Republicans across the country, winning control of both the House and the Senate and giving Democrats the power to obstruct Trump’s legislative agenda and investigate his administration for the final two years of his second term. While the midterm elections typically result in losses for the sitting president’s party, the scale of GOP losses—including in states that Trump carried handily in 2024, like Texas, Kansas and South Carolina—was a direct repudiation of Trump, as voters grew increasingly frustrated by high costs and the unpopular war with Iran.
Vice President JD Vance squarely blamed the Iran war as the primary reason for the GOP’s losses. And while Trump has conceded that the war affected the midterms, he also defended the decision to go to war. Other Republicans including Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene have pointed the finger squarely at the president, and said the results reflect the need for a wider Republican reckoning.
Newsweek has contacted the White House for comment via email. The president has conceded that his war with Iran was responsible for his party’s stunning midterm losses, though he defended his decision to launch it. "I don't like to consider it a defeat for me.
I wasn't on the ballot," he told Fox News. On Truth Social, he wrote: “I wasn’t on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!” The vice president broke with Trump’s defense of the Iran war in a lengthy post-mortem on social media following the Republican Party’s losses. In a post on X, he said the war was the main reason for the losses.
"The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night," he wrote. He listed four actions that Republicans could take to win back their voters: end the Iran war, focus on the cost of living and inflation, put America first, and change the U.S. relationship with Israel.
The Florida governor, who ran against Trump for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, placed blame for the losses more directly on the president. "Look, this midterm, no question, was a rebuke of the president and the Congress by Democrats, independents, and some Republicans that crossed over," DeSantis said on Fox News. DeSantis also blamed GOP lawmakers for failing to deliver enough conservative wins while they controlled both chambers of Congress.
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