Photo: Office of Vice President of the United States / Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Developing story
Vice President JD Vance said on Nov. 4 that the war with Iran is the reason Republicans lost in the midterms, after Democrats flipped both chambers of Congress, according to the Spokesman-Review. President Donald Trump told the Wall Street Journal on Nov. 3 that the war was partly to blame.
Vice President JD Vance said on Wednesday, Nov. 4, that the war with Iran is why Republicans lost in the midterm elections. He wrote on X: The reason we lost is the war.
According to the Spokesman-Review, Democrats flipped both chambers of Congress and won even in some deep-red areas. The paper reported that the war began in February, when U.S. and Israeli forces attacked Iran and killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other top officials.
On Tuesday night, Nov. 3, Trump told the Wall Street Journal the war was partly to blame. Iran was a piece of it,
he said. He added that he believed higher oil prices, which rose sharply because of the war, frustrated voters more than the conflict itself.
Trump also said of the war: I would have done it again.
Vance wrote that any honest talk about the party’s path forward must start with the war. He said a data analyst told him before the election that many 2024 Trump-Vance voters planned to vote for Democrats. The report did not name the analyst, and Vance’s account of that conversation is not independently confirmed.
According to Vance, a pollster whom he holds in high regard relayed that Trump supporters who had defected identified four paths by which Republicans could bring them back. Those paths were bringing the war to an end, concentrating on living costs and inflation, pursuing "America first," and altering the nation’s ties with Israel.
Vance also rejected amnesty for immigrants as a way to win votes. He wrote that he is open to changing enforcement, such as focusing more on businesses that hire illegal labor. Anyone pushing amnesty is lying to you,
he wrote.
The report did not give final seat counts for either chamber.
This story is developing and will be updated.
What it means for you
- Vance and Trump both tied the Republican losses to the Iran war, and Trump pointed to oil prices as a bigger voter frustration than the conflict itself.
- Vance said Trump voters who switched to Democrats want Republicans to focus on the cost of living and inflation.
- Vance said he is open to shifting immigration enforcement toward businesses that hire illegal labor, but opposes amnesty.
- Watch for how other Republicans respond to Vance’s argument on the war, which he made in a post on Nov. 4.