Vice President JD Vance said Wednesday that Republicans suffered a decisive midterm defeat not because their voters stayed home, but because many who backed him and President Trump in 2024 showed up this time to vote for Democrats.
In a lengthy post written Wednesday morning, Vance walked through what he said Republican data analysts had been watching closely in the run-up to the election: turnout composition. He said the numbers never pointed to a collapse in GOP turnout, even as polls forecast a Democratic wave.
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.
Vance said he asked a data analyst whether the numbers meant Republicans would beat expectations. He was told no — Republicans might outperform the polls, but a significant share of 2024 Trump-Vance voters were angry and planning to back Democrats anyway.
Our voters are turning out, but they may not vote for us.
Vance pointed to Florida as an example. He said the state’s electorate came in 9 points more Republican than Democrat on Tuesday, only slightly worse than the 2024 result. He argued that gap shows turnout wasn’t the core problem.
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.
Vance said a separate pollster he trusts had warned him before Tuesday that Republicans would get “crushed” because “lots of Trump 2024 voters were angry.” That pollster identified four steps Vance said could win those voters back: ending the war, focusing on the cost of living and inflation, putting America First, and changing the United States’ relationship with 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,” Vance wrote.
Vance points to the Iran war
Vance then named what he called the real cause of the loss: the war with Iran. He predicted Republicans would soon hear calls from within the party to respond with immigration amnesty, and he dismissed that idea in advance.
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.
Vance said Republicans who believe the war was worth the political cost, including the loss of the Senate for six years, should say so openly rather than blame turnout or other factors.
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.
