The vice president of the United States has now said out loud what voters said on Tuesday.
"The reason we lost is the war," JD Vance wrote on Wednesday. "The president himself said so last night."
He dared his own party to defend it. "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," he wrote.
Trump was asked about it. He said Vance was mostly right, and he explained the damage this way: "I think it's largely true because it drove the gasoline up a little bit short term." Then he said he'd do it all over again.
Vance gets to say that now that the votes are in. Congress had chances to order this war stopped before anyone went to the polls. The Republicans on this site voted no.
Voters told pollsters the same thing
Trump launched the war in February, and Congress never voted to authorize it. When polls closed on Tuesday, it was still going, and Iran was still blocking the Strait of Hormuz, a shipping route that has squeezed the world's oil supply.
NBC News exit polling, reported by Common Dreams, found that 74% of voters called the war a "crucial" or "major" factor in their vote. Democrats won 63% of those voters. And 63% of all voters said going to war was the wrong call.
Vance wrote that people who voted Republican in 2024 flipped to Democrats, and he named what they wanted: end the war and focus on the cost of living were the first two on his list.
"A little bit" is not what it looks like from a school bus
Here is what "a little bit short term" looks like.
In North Carolina, diesel hit a record average of more than $6 a gallon this fall. School districts there spent $17.1 million on diesel in the first couple of months of the school year. They spent $8.6 million in the same stretch last year, for nearly the same number of gallons. The state's education department is now asking lawmakers for $40 million to help districts cover the cost.
That is one state's school buses. Congress's own budget office put the war's direct cost at $38.1 billion through August 1.
They had the chance to order it stopped
The House voted six times on orders to bring the troops home from Iran, and three of them passed. Each time, nearly every Republican voted no. On September 15 the vote was 220 to 204, with Republicans 203 to 7 against. A total of 180 of the 204 no votes came from House members on this site who were still running, and every one of them has a name pill at the top of this post.
The Senate voted nine days later. On September 24, the order the House had passed in July failed 49 to 50. One vote.
Here are the 14 senators on this site who voted no: Ashley Moody, Bill Hagerty, Cindy Hyde-Smith, Dan Sullivan, Darline Graham, Jim Risch, Jon Husted, Marsha Blackburn, Mike Rounds, Pete Ricketts, Roger Marshall, Shelley Moore Capito, Tom Cotton and Tommy Tuberville.
Any one of the Republicans in that "no" column could have changed the result. Four Republican senators did vote yes, so it could be done. The resolution was largely symbolic, but it would have put both chambers on record telling Trump to bring the troops home.
Some of the 194 lost on Tuesday. Most of them won.
What happens now
Trump isn't changing course. "I did the right thing. I would have done it again," he told The Wall Street Journal, according to Common Dreams.
Trump also repeated that he had expected the war to hurt Republicans in the midterms, and that it was worth it. So the two men at the top of the party agree on what this war did. The people on this list voted to keep it going anyway.
In summary
JD Vance said "the reason we lost is the war," and Trump called that "largely true" while saying he would do it again. NBC's exit poll found 74% of voters called the war a crucial or major factor, and 63% called it the wrong decision. Fourteen senators and 180 House members on this site voted against ordering U.S. forces out, and the order the House passed in July failed in the Senate by one vote.
Sources
- Vance and Trump blame midterm GOP elections loss on their war in Iran, States Newsroom, via the Florida Phoenix
