Republicans blame Iran war and costs for midterm losses

Republicans are blaming the war with Iran and rising living costs after Democrats took control of both chambers of Congress in the U.S. midterm elections. Vice President JD Vance, Senator Ted Cruz and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis each called for the party to reckon with voter frustration following defeats that extended into former Republican strongholds.

“The reason we lost is the war,” Vance wrote on X. He said former Trump voters had switched sides over the conflict and U.S. ties to Israel, according to Al Jazeera. “To the people who are just pissed at the results, you should be,” he wrote. “Let’s take that anger and get back to the work of saving our country.”

President Donald Trump also acknowledged the war’s effect on voters. Asked about its impact on Republican support, he told reporters at the White House on Wednesday: “It’s largely true because it drove gasoline up a little bit.”

Cruz pointed to both the conflict and Trump’s tariffs. “Tariffs have made everything too expensive and the Iran war has dragged on too long,” he said on his podcast, Verdict With Ted Cruz, according to The Guardian. “It should have been brief, decisive and over. It needs to end.”

Cruz said elected Republicans had failed to respond to the pressure on households. “Food is too high. Gas is too high. Diesel is too high. Insurance is too high. Life is too high,” he said. He described the result in a post on X as “not simply a blue wave; it was a blue tsunami.”

Democrats won a majority of gubernatorial races as well as both chambers of Congress, The Guardian reported. The party campaigned on making life more affordable and checking Trump’s agenda as voters faced higher prices for gasoline and groceries.

Al Jazeera reported that the United States and Israel launched strikes across Iran on February 28, after which Tehran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz. Brent crude reached $120 a barrel in March and April and had hovered around $115 in recent weeks, the outlet reported. It fell to $93.82 on Thursday morning amid expectations that Republican losses would make renewed U.S. strikes less likely.

DeSantis called the election “close to an extinction-level event” for Republicans. “If the Republican Party doesn’t have Texas as an anchor, then we are not going to be viable nationally going forward,” he said, according to Al Jazeera.

He also said Democratic ads had damaged Republicans over the Jeffrey Epstein files and congressional stock trading. According to The Guardian, DeSantis criticized members of Congress who voted against releasing files tied to Epstein after Republicans had campaigned in favor of their release. “It’s untenable when you have people going in, trading stock,” he said.

The losses have also sharpened questions about the party’s direction ahead of the 2028 presidential race. No Republican has declared a candidacy, Al Jazeera reported. A New York Times poll cited by the outlet put Vance at 40 percent in a hypothetical Republican primary, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Donald Trump Jr. each at 21 percent.