Vance and Trump blame midterm GOP elections loss on their war in Iran

The fingerpointing is coming from inside the house.

Vice President JD Vance said in a lengthy social media post Wednesday that Republicans’ shellacking in the midterm elections the night before was mainly due to the administration’s war in Iran.

Though Vance sought to soften the blow to President Donald Trump by ascribing the same opinion to the president, the post was an unusual public distancing by a sitting vice president and marked a significant first step in a post-Trump Republican political landscape that Vance will likely seek to lead.

“The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night,” Vance wrote. “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.”

Vance served as a U.S. Marine in Iraq and later heavily criticized that Middle East war, calling it “an unforced disaster,” in a 2023 social media post.

‘Largely true’

Speaking to reporters Wednesday afternoon, Trump said Vance’s view was mostly correct.

“I think it’s largely true because it drove the gasoline up a little bit short term,” he said when asked about Vance’s post. “Probably it’s true. But at the same time, if I had to do it again, I’d have to do it again because long term, it’s the only answer. You can’t let Iran have a nuclear” weapon.

“I know how he feels about it,” he said later. “I thought it was fine.”

He repeated that he’d expected the war to have a negative effect on the midterms, but that it was worth pursuing.

Trump launched military operations in Iran in February, despite no apparent active threat from the Islamic republic. He promised the conflict would soon end, but when polls closed Tuesday night, it was still active and Iran maintained a block of the critical shipping route through the Strait of Hormuz that has squeezed the global supply of oil.

2028 message?

Vance is seen as a frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination in 2028, but Tuesday’s drubbing, in which Republicans lost Senate seats and governorships in states Trump and Vance carried by double digits in 2024 and ceded a large House majority to Democrats, could demonstrate a need to distance himself from Trump to stand a chance in the general election. 

In his post, Vance noted that Republicans’ problem on Tuesday was not turnout, but that many voters who supported the Republican ticket in 2024 flipped to Democrats this year.

He said those voters identified four issues that drove their switch: end the war, focus on the cost of living, “Put America First” and change the United States’ “relationship to Israel.”

“Our voters showed up,” he wrote. “And the above four reasons are why many of them voted for Democrats.”

Vance also predicted calls would come for significant changes to immigration policy after some analysts said that an aggressive — sometimes deadly — enforcement campaign led to backlash among some Trump 2024 voters.

Vance rejected any major overhaul, while again signaling some daylight between himself and Trump on the administration’s signature issue.

“Expect to hear any number of establishment politicians say the solution to our woes is amnesty,” he said. “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.”