Republicans lose House and Senate; Vance blames Iran war, Trump defends it

Republicans lose both chambers

The Republican Party lost its majorities in the House of Representatives and the Senate in the midterm elections held on 3 November. The results came in on the evening of 3 November, and Republican figures began looking for someone to blame almost immediately. Reports cited by senior Republicans linked the defeat to Trump's tariff policy, the war with Iran that pushed up prices, weak candidates he backed, and a series of unconvincing campaign events in the weeks before the vote. Don Bacon, a Republican from Nebraska, told The New York Times that the vote was about Trump himself. Trump argued in an interview with the same paper that the party failed to mobilise enough voters because his name was not on the ballot.

Vance points to the Iran war

Vice President J.D. Vance wrote on X on 4 November that the party had lost because of the war, and noted that the president had said as much himself. He argued that many Americans who backed the Trump-Vance ticket in 2024 voted for Democrats this time out of disappointment rather than a change of heart. According to Vance, those voters wanted an end to the war, lower living costs, more attention to problems at home and a different approach to relations with Israel. Trump does not deny that the war hurt Republicans, and he acknowledged in an interview with the Wall Street Journal that it contributed to higher fuel prices. He nonetheless told the paper he did what needed to be done and would make the same decision again. Vance has not broken with Trump politically, though the two men now draw opposite conclusions from the same events.

Trump's defence and the race for succession

In a live phone call broadcast by Fox News, Trump described the previous two years as the best in the history of the American presidency in terms of the economy and everything his administration had done. He said he did not take the election result as a blow aimed at him personally. In Poland, Zbigniew Bogucki, the closest adviser to President Nawrocki, offered a different reading on Republika television on the morning of 4 November.

“There were those who predicted a defeat for Donald Trump and for the Republicans. That did not happen.”

The contest to succeed Trump is already taking shape, with J.D. Vance, Marco Rubio and Ron DeSantis cited as the names to watch. Karol Szulc, an American studies scholar at the University of Wroclaw, told naTemat that the Republican base remains highly organised and loyal to Trump, which makes it hard for the party to walk away from him. He judged that Marco Rubio has better prospects than Vance of widening the electorate.

“There is only one strategy: not to look at what Donald Trump or the next president does.”

Szulc also said Kansas, Mississippi and Texas being taken back from Republicans after many decades surprised him, and he urged European leaders not to wait passively for the end of Trump's term.