Author: Blazingcatfur

Hours after Democrats routed Republicans in the midterm elections, Vice President JD Vance blamed his party’s losses on Americans’ frustration over the U.S. war with Iran, which has driven up oil prices at a time when costs are already high.

“The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night,” Vance said in a lengthy post on X.

“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. “Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay. Agree or disagree, that’s at least honest,” Vance added. “But everyone knows why we lost. And any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there.”

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

Republicans braced for a day of recriminations Wednesday as they woke to a midterm rout in states across the nation, with Democrats reclaiming both the Senate and House by stunningly wide margins.

In private calls and texts, Republicans lamented strategies they now viewed as inadequate — like the southern redistricting gambit — or politically damaging, like launching the war in Iran.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump spent the latter half of election night trying to distance himself from his party’s electoral debacle, after weeks of urging voters to go to the polls as if he were on the ballot.

For two years, the world has weathered President Trump’s domineering unilateralism, enduring up-and-down tariffs, a war with Iran, aggression in Latin America, abrupt reversals on Ukraine, and a fusillade of demands for allies including Canada, Germany and Japan.

Now, with Democrats having taken control of Congress as nearly all of Mr. Trump’s preferred Republicans fall to defeat, many countries are debating what to expect from yet another case of American political whiplash.

Jason Kenney has now joined CBC’s U.S. midterm Decision Desk audition as the token western wanker

He scolds Alberta separatists and the Canadian right for being “inspired” by MAGA’s “burn-it-down” style, declaring tonight’s results prove even Americans are tired of it. Soft both-sides-but-mostly-one-side framing on trade, then the usual gentle lecture

This is the same CBC that spent weeks sneering at Ambassador Hoekstra for warning Canadian politicians to “keep your nose out” of American races. Now it’s using a former Alberta premier to explain U.S. House and Senate math and why Canadian populists are wrong — while submitting to Carney’s demand to join Eurovision and treating actual Canadian politics as the B-reel to their U.S. big tent

Hoekstra’s complaints look a lot less unhinged when the CBC is treating American midterms as its own election night @jkenney

— cbcwatcher (@cbcwatcher) November 4, 2026