For two years the vice president echoed the White House line on nearly everything, and then he posted a four-item list that started with ending the war in Iran.
Vice President JD Vance blamed his party’s midterm collapse on the war in Iran in a lengthy post on X on Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2026, one day after Democrats seized control of both chambers of Congress.
“The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night,” Vance wrote. He credited the four tasks to a pollster he described as “one of the smartest people I know in politics.” In order, they were: end the war in Iran; focus on cost of living and inflation; put America first; “Change our relationship to Israel.”
Vance argued that turnout was not the party’s problem. Republican-side data analysts had fixated on whether the 2026 electorate would resemble the one in 2024, he wrote, and by his account the numbers held up well enough in state after state. His diagnosis was blunter: many voters who backed Trump and Vance in 2024 voted Democratic this year, and pollsters told him those voters were angry.
“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,” he wrote, adding: “But everyone knows why we lost. And any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there.”
A Third of Voters Called It Crucial
The war is now more than eight months old, having started in late February, and gas and diesel prices have climbed sharply in the United States and globally since it began. Trump campaigned in 2024 on ending foreign wars and lowering prices. An Election Day voter poll found 34 percent said the war was “crucial” to their vote, and about four in 10 House voters said they were angry about the country’s direction.
A New York Times analysis of voter data, cited by the BBC on Nov. 8, found Latino support for Democratic candidates rose 29 percentage points from 2024 to 2026. Support among voters aged 18-29 climbed 33 points.
Democrats held 54 Senate seats to the Republicans’ 44 as of Sunday, Nov. 8, a net Democratic gain of seven in a chamber where 51 seats bring control. They flipped Texas, Ohio and Maine. The races in Alaska and Mississippi remained razor-thin. Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son, reposted the vice president’s assessment on X and endorsed it.
Trump Calls It “Largely True”
President Donald Trump had already cited the war as part of the reason for the losses in election night interviews. Asked about his vice president’s post, he told reporters: “I think it’s largely true because it drove the gasoline up a little bit short term.” A nuclear weapon in the hands of Iran is unacceptable, he said, and on those grounds he would make the same decision again. Asked whether the post had come as a surprise to him, Trump said he knows how Vance feels about the war and thought the post was fine.
Trump told “60 Minutes” correspondent Ross Douthat three days after the election that his immigration crackdown “both helped and hurt” him at the polls, and that it may have been “too tough” in pursuing people in the country for a decade or more. “But I get hurt because we also took people that had good jobs, that created one violation, or breaking of the law, and that was that they came into the country illegally,” he said.
Military aid to Israel would end at the close of this year, Trump said on Election Day — a year before the current memorandum of understanding expires. Measures to cut that military aid or block weapons sales to Israel have drawn votes from Democrats in the House and Senate, and Republicans rejected them almost across the board. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, poised to become House speaker, told CNN on Wednesday, Nov. 4, that Democrats would seek an end to the Iran war as part of a broader affordability agenda after flipping both chambers.
“Nonsense,” Says a Former AIPAC Staffer
Jonathan Greenberg, director for combatting antisemitism at Defending Education and a former staffer for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), dismissed Vance’s comments as nonsense, saying the vice president is wrong. Polling data, Manhattan Institute fellow Daniel Di Martino wrote on X, does not back up what Vance claims; he pointed instead to tariffs, deportations and corruption.
Republican lawmakers have spread the blame wider than Vance did. Their list takes in the war, weak candidates, the administration’s tariff policies and a focus on pet projects such as the ballroom. Outgoing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis called the midterms “close to an extinction-level event for Republicans,” as of Nov. 8. Steve Bannon predicted a “civil war” in the party and blamed the economy and “foreign wars.”
Miller Moves In, Walters Walks Out
Susie Wiles resigned as White House chief of staff on the night of Thursday, Nov. 5. Trump announced the next day that deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller would replace her starting Monday, and that Wiles was “moving over to the Trump Political Operation.” Vance praised Miller on X, saying he “will do great things.”
Richard Walters, a deputy chief of staff and longtime Wiles ally, told CBS News that he submitted his resignation to Miller on Friday, Nov. 6 — the first major departure since Miller was named chief of staff.
Unnamed sources say Vance is courting disgruntled Trump voters for a “new right” alliance ahead of 2028. A Trump administration official told Fox News Digital that the four tasks amount to the vice president’s rallying cry for a coalition aligned with Trump’s original America First movement, built on staying out of foreign conflicts, affordability for families and border security. The official framed the effort as loyalty to Trump rather than a break of the kind former Vice President Mike Pence made after Jan. 6, and said the target audience is Trump supporters who feel betrayed by the administration’s foreign policy.
Vance has long been a skeptic of U.S. intervention abroad, and he has publicly distanced himself from the conflict ahead of a possible 2028 run. Early in the war, as Trump weighed the decision, Vance was reported to be dubious of and opposed to striking Tehran. He defended Operation Epic Fury after it began, then steered clear of the subject for months. Trump said earlier in 2026 that his vice president had been perhaps not as keen on attacking Iran.
Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are widely considered the leading Republican contenders for 2028. The midterm results are widely seen as a referendum on Trump’s presidency.