First posted on Instagram
Vice President JD Vance has blamed the war with Iran for Republicans' sweeping losses in the November 3 midterm elections, in which Democrats seized control of both the House and the Senate, saying bluntly: "The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night."
Vice President JD Vance points to the Iran war as a major reason behind Republicans' sweeping midterm losses, and says Republicans must take a hard look at what went wrong, including the war's impact, rising cost-of-living concerns, the party's America First priorities, and its relationship with Israel; those who warned about the war's political consequences have every right to say "I told you so."
Vance said the biggest problem was not getting Republican supporters to the polls, but persuading them to vote Republican once they arrived: MAGA voters did show up, but in key states too many crossed over or refused to support Republican candidates. He said he had gathered feedback from respected pollsters and data analysts after Tuesday's elections.
The four leading responses from former Trump voters asked what would bring them back, Vance said, were ending the war, addressing the cost of living and inflation, putting America First, and changing the United States' relationship with Israel — and those four issues accounted for nearly all of the responses from voters who had abandoned the party.
Vance also told Fox News that the Iran war's unpopularity was "part of" the reason for the scale of the Republican losses, and President Trump himself acknowledged the war played a role in the losses, according to CBS News reporting cited in coverage of Vance's remarks.
Context: the United States and Israel launched the war against Iran in February 2026 (Operation Epic Fury); Vance, a longtime sceptic of foreign wars, had pushed back against the war in its opening days and later became the administration's lead negotiator with Tehran. The war has driven energy and cost-of-living concerns through the campaign.
Vance's warning, as framed in the Instagram post: Republicans must reckon with voters' frustrations, their America First priorities and the party's relationship with Israel, and with how it reconnects with voters heading into 2028.
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