Conservatives stunned by 'catastrophic' midterm blue tsunami, blame Trump's Iran war, high gas prices
By: Joseph Wulfsohn (Fox News)
The 2028 election cycle has begun. As expected, Republicans are distancing themselves from Trump so they have a political future.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Conservatives were left stunned by the results of the 2026 midterm elections Tuesday and are attempting to grapple with the new political landscape.
Democrats dominated in red and blue states alike, easily retaking both the House and Senate, as well as flipping several governorships. Democrats picked up victories in numerous states won by President Donald Trump in 2024, including seemingly deep-red spots like Texas, South Carolina and Kansas.
Members of conservative media were gobsmacked by the sweeping defeats.
"It is a catastrophic night for Republicans," Washington Examiner columnist Guy Benson reacted on Fox.
Democrats have retaken both the House and the Senate in a major blowout in the 2026 midterms.(Fox News - Paul Steinhauser)
"Sometimes you get your a-- kicked, and deserve it. Tonight is one such time for the Republican Party," conservative radio host Buck Sexton reacted to the results on X. "Way too many mistakes. Bad messaging. Poor candidates. High prices. Unnecessary war that did not go as promised. We get up tomorrow and carry on. But there are lessons here."
"Tbh most Republican candidates this cycle were uninspiring, lazy, and thoroughly ineffective communicators. I'm not all that surprised by some of these outcomes," Trump advisor Alex Bruesewitz said.
"[Trump] picked a bunch of the bad ones," commentator Mary Katharine Ham wrote on X of the losing candidates.
Many pointed to Trump, the war with Iran and the surge in gas prices as being responsible for the devastating losses for his party.
"Trump launched an unpopular and pointless war. Gas prices are too high. People can't afford groceries. Trump abandoned the American First message. This is why Republicans are getting crushed. It's very simple," The Daily Wire's Matt Walsh wrote.
"This will be the biggest national wipeout for Republicans since 2006, when voters brutally punished the GOP for an ill-advised and poorly planned war in the Middle East," The Federalist co-founder Sean Davis said.
However, conservative radio host Erick Erickson insisted the issues went far beyond the Iran war and gas prices.
"It was also the corruption. The incompetence. The tariffs. The playing nice with Russia. The impression of cruelty. The overly aggressive deportations. The accidental arrests of American citizens who were Hispanic. The arrogance. The ballroom. The reflecting poll. The golf courses. The arch. The Qatari 747. The aggressive redistricting push. The threats against enemies," Erickson listed.
The "Ruthless Podcast" hosts appeared on Fox News Channel and joked about leaning towards hard liquor as the night progressed.
"I don't think this was, at all, concerned with policy. This is a firm backlash," Josh Holmes told Fox News' Bret Baier.
"This is an absolute backlash from the voters," Comfortably Smug agreed. "They aren't concerned with the policies these Democrats have. They aren't concerned with any kind of vision for the future that the Democrats are offering or how they're going to fight inflation … They are angry, and they're making their voices heard."
"Ruthless" co-host Michael Duncan suggested there was a "dissonance" among voters separating the Democratic policies that were rejected under the Biden administration and that the GOP message "didn't resonate."
"Ultimately, at the end of the day, the present condition of the voters is what they vote on, not the scary thing you project into the future. And unfortunately, that's the problem for the Republican Party," Duncan said. "It didn't matter if it was a DSA candidate or [Annie] Andrews in South Carolina. They all moved up in a wave together, irrespective of that."
Trump did several interviews as the results rolled in, congratulating Democrats and saying he was willing to work with the party controlling Congress and also ready to use the veto.
Trump said he believed he had support for the war with Iran but felt voters weren't willing to put up with the "short-term" pain of higher gas prices. He also said he didn't feel like it was a personal defeat since he wasn't on the ballot.
"I think the Democrats did a good job," he told Fox News. "I really do. I think they did a good job. They fought hard. They've been fighting for a long time."
Fox News' Brian Flood contributed to this report.
Joseph A. Wulfsohn is a media reporter for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to joseph.wulfsohn@fox.com and on Twitter: @JosephWulfsohn.
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The Democratic Party will do its part in the rehabilitation of TEA Party Republicans by providing the justification to walk away from Trump. Democrats will be beating a dead horse in 2028.
Somehow you always manage to give the Democrats an equal share of the blame as you give Trump.
The Democrats didnt create Trump, white grievance did.
But Democrats did give Trump a platform and a reason. White grievance wouldn't be a 'thang' if not for Democrat Karens pushing their brand of identity entitlement.
Even if that were true (it is not), who do you suppose created white grievance?
White grievance built up over time, but really took visible hold when Barack Obama ran for president.
To white nationalists this was an "existential" threat. Trump exploited that white anxiety in 2011 when he tried to use birtherism to launch his political career. He might have succeeded in 2011 had Obama not released his long form birth certificate and taken all the wind from Trumps sails. Trump bided his time more or less, mainly because president was the only office he was interested in and the next presidential election was four years away. He tweeted a lot in those four years and continued to express birther beliefs. He made his move in 2015 and immediately got the "white" vote behind him.
White grievance is an invention of progressive academic elites and Democratic political operatives.
How many 'white nationalists' are there? You know, patriotism is NOT white nationalism. Reverence for the US flag is NOT white nationalism. National traditions, like singing the national anthem for sporting events, is NOT white nationalism.
Barack Obama is a fucking divisive asshole that belittles American traditions and dismisses the idea of American exceptionalism. Obama exploits his birthright citizenship to tear the country apart. The only people Obama appeals to are those who want to exploit America to satisfy their sense of aggreived entitlement.
I'm curious, do you deny that Trump wanted to use birtherism, which is a close cousin to white grievance, to launch a presidential bid in 2011?
LOL. Why else did he do it?
He was completely ignorant of Obama's origin or history , completely, but he went on all the talk shows to proclaim there was something disturbing about Obamas background. This was in 2011, after Obama had already been in office for over two years. Why do you think he did it? Next thing you'll try and tell me that birtherism wasnt racist.
While I agree that is true to a few folks, saying it was the main feeling of the folks that voted for him is hyperbole. Contrary to the belief of some white nationalist are not behind every tree.
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No, none of those things are 'white nationalism'. But to say it's not out there and a part of the MAGA movement is to be in complete denial.
That's the shit I want out of our country. I revere the American flag, not the confederate flag or some Christo-fascist flag. I love my country. I do not love my fellow Americans who have some overinflated sense of self who think there is some desperate need to protect some fictional "white America". Fuck any piece of shit that still doesn't think races should mix, or that we can't welcome in every culture and people as an immigrant nation, a melting pot. If the fact that America is a melting pot, a beautiful kaleidoscope of people, skin colors, languages, cultures and faiths makes someone bitter and angry because they want an all 'white Christian' focused country, then they can get the fuck out, we don't need them.
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Is that supposed to contradict what I said: While I agree that is true to a few folks, saying it was the main feeling of the folks that voted for him is hyperbole. Contrary to the belief of some white nationalist are not behind every tree.
Trump himself wanted to use "white grievance" as a means of making himself a presidential candidate in 2011 (for the 2012 election). That is exactly why he came out of nowhere to become the lead birther.
I dont try and estimate what percentage of whites engage in white grievance. Some do without ever making it public or even particularly noticeable.
I am pulling this stuff out of thin air, its been studied.
Do you think opposition to immigration has nothing to do with skin color? Why is Trump occasionally asking for more white immigrants ?
Then hard to prove it is a major issue. If it was such a huge issue Obama never would have won, and then won again.
Some but very few. It seems most folks are for immigration if done the correct way.
Trump did it to create chaos. Birtherism fit Trump's rhetoric on immigration. Plus it was a way to own the libs and encourage them to tear hair and rend clothes. Democrats were true to their stereotypical identity politics of placing Black people in the role of victim. And it placed Obama in the awkward position of highlighting his mother was a white woman.
Obama only had to point out that his mother was a birthright citizen. But Obama focused attention on his birth certificate rather than his birthright citizenship from his mother. Why was that?
Democrats electing the first mixed race President doesn't have the same historical punch, does it? Democrats jumped on the racist wagon by only allowing Obama to be Black; mixed race wouldn't do. Democrats would not have accepted Obama celebrating his white heritage. Obama had to be the 1st Black President so his white mother was thrown under the Democrats' identity bus.
90% of what you just said is nonsense.
Obama is not a "birthright" citizen. His mother was born in Wichita Kansas.
In the United States people self identify as to race. If a mixed race person calls themselves black, and identifies themselves as black, they are black. They may be mixed race but they are culturally black if they want to be seen as such.
The self identifying of mixed race people is a by product of the "one drop rule"
Barack Hussein Obama is a citizen of the United States by birth. Obama is a birthright citizen.
The "one drop rule" was the racist metric used in the Democratic south to validate segregation. The "one drop rule" was the identity politics of the Democratic Party during the first half of the 20th century. You are confirming that the Democratic Party still relies on the "one drop rule" to justify its modern identity politics.
IMO the dems have a great opportunity. They have enough votes where they won't have to coddle the far left of their party to get them to vote with them and can bring things back to the center. Hopefully they do this and don't either consider this a "mandate" to go far left.
Also hopefully they don't go full DT and remember the promises they mad to the American people.
Otherwise the pendulum will just swing in the opposite direction in two years.
But does the Democratic Party enjoy the loyalty of centrist voters? Special interests are fickle and independents can swing wildly.
Pandering for the marginal voter in close elections won't bring the Democratic Party back to the center. When 2% of the vote can determine an election, the political advisors will push for pandering. To become truly centrist, the Democratic Party must set specific core values that cannot be pandered away. Win, lose, or draw, those core values would be inviolate. Today's Democratic Party doesn't have the spine for that.
Like it or not, the Trump voters remained true to their core values. And they lost rather than change those core values. Democrats would likely call that 'doubling down on stupid'. But pandering to the polls would hand the real power to unelected political influencers that run the country through social media. Rachel Maddow may be able to influence voters but she doesn't stand for anything other than herself. Maddow is a political Karen screaming at the sky, not a policy maker.
Good question. We will see sooner rather than later. I think the far left will be making noise about moving far left. We shall see what the rest of the party will answer with since the votes may not be needed. Of course this also means trying to work with the repubs on issues they can. I look forward to see the dems position on the 80/20 issues they have been on the wrong side for years. My hope is that was just catering to the far left because they needed their votes.
Exactly. My hope is that the dems will have the spine for that. I am far from saying I believe they do.
I think Trump voters will turn out to be a fickle bunch. They ( and many dems) will hold dems feet to the fire to get out of the war and bring prices down. Many of them will probably stay in the rep camp. It will be interesting to see where Repub after Trump ends up. We should start seeing that soon. Maddow is an idiot with a tv show. There are lots of them. It is the folks that get their news from tic toc I am more worried about
The rumble in the swamp has already started:
You expect Trump voters to become unaffiliated? I suppose that's possible but I can't see Trump voters becoming flaming left-wing liberals. If MAGA can reclaim its grassroots principles then I can see less participation in national politics and more emphasis on local politics.
Maybe not but don't forget Trump knocked down the blue wall and may have disappointed them this go around. If the dems were smart they would try to shore up those states. Not left wing liberals to be sure but willing to give the dems another shot........maybe.
IMO MAGA is another one of those terms that have been overused to the point of being meaningless. With Trump headed out it seems it may fade into a boogeyman used by the dems to scare people into thinking they are still out there and still a danger to democracy.
Can Texas resurrect the Blue Dogs? Democrats reclaiming the Solid South could sacrifice their blue wall.
The TEA Party latched onto MAGA to gain some respectability within the Republican Party. Go back to the 2016 Republican primaries when Ted Cruz represented the TEA Party, Trump represented MAGA, and Marco Rubio was a stand-in for the establishment. The MAGA of 2016 really was different than what is considered MAGA today.
The left thinks calling people "MAGA" makes people cry like they do when they get called "LIBTARD".
Libtard girls are easy?