JD Vance hasn’t minced his words towards president Trump following the Republicans’ dramatic loss in the midterm elections.
The Democrats claimed a resounding victory in the elections, winning both the US Senate and House of Representatives, which will see them take control of Congress for the rest of Donald Trump‘s presidency.
Although its still unclear if they could force the 80-year-old president out entirely, the Republicans’ power in the US has been limited by the results, and those in the Red corner aren’t taking the news too well, with Trump promising a ‘fiery’ response.
That includes Vance, who many had speculated could be the successor to Trump since he is unable to serve a third term, but the two might not be on the best terms after Vance’s recent post.
Taking to X, the vice-president wrote: “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 p****d 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 nine 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.|
Trump and Vance do seem to agree on why the Republicans lost (Kent NISHIMURA / AFP via Getty Images)
However, after all the political jargon, he went on to make his message clear, suggesting that the ‘real reason’ the Republicans is ‘obvious to almost everyone’. That would, of course, be the Iran war.
The war has forced up the price of goods in the US, as Iran continues to block the Strait of Hormuz, which is increasing oil prices across the world. Trump hasn’t exactly won over the people with his approach to the war either, recently suggesting that Iran could ‘take out’ Los Angeles and San Diego.
Vance went on: “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
Trump’s approach to the Iran war seemingly cost him the vote ((Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
“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.”
However, he did admit that the president himself suggested that the war was the main reason that the Republicans had lost, so perhaps the two are still going to see eye-to-eye for the remaining two years of his presidency.
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