Republicans sort through election carnage for a message ahead of a new era

Republicans woke up Wednesday morning licking their wounds after a shellacking in Tuesday’s midterm elections. Many are now determining what the path forward for their party ought to be and how far to push back on President Trump from the minority.

After enjoying a governing trifecta for the first two years of the second Trump presidency, where extreme deference to the president was the law of the land, Republicans are staring down a new political reality.

They aren’t even sure whether to blame their own leaders.

While the top Republicans in the Senate are likely to stay the same, a leadership shake-up is on deck in the House as Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) will not seek to be minority leader.

In their initial responses to the massive electoral losses, Republicans acknowledged the effect of the war in Iran and high prices, especially for gasoline, on voters’ attitudes.

Vice President Vance, a likely contender to succeed Trump in 2028, explicitly blamed Republicans’ losses on the war in Iran.

“The reason we lost is the war,” Vance said in a lengthy post Wednesday on social platform X. “The president himself said so last night.”

Vance’s critique was an extraordinary acknowledgment that his administration’s handling of the war has become a political liability for Republicans, even as Trump continues to defend it.

Other Republicans, while stopping short of criticizing Trump directly, indicated that the time was ripe for more resistance from Congress to his agenda.

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), in an interview with a South Dakota reporter, suggested Republicans may conduct their own long-delayed oversight of the administration.

“We’ll do our best to respect the office of the presidency, to work with the president, to try to move forward in terms of building our economy,” Rounds said. “But we’re also going to have to take a second look at some of the executive branch decisions that have been made, and we’ll try to add our two cents in and maybe make them a little bit better.”

Douglas Heye, a longtime Republican strategist, told The Hill he felt the election loss was “inevitable.”

“As Trump denied the reality of what voters felt and his approval rating became a never-ending limbo contest of how low can it go, hoarding money and veering bizarrely off message, this self-created Trump Quake was inevitable,” Heye said. “Where the party goes from here — no one knows.”

On Wednesday, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) said he thinks there’s Republican support for ending the Iran war as soon as possible. Schumer said Democrats would likely use the “power of the purse” to starve the Defense Department of funding if necessary.

There are also already Republicans more openly calling for a rethinking of the party platform, which has become synonymous with Trump’s wishes.

Chief among those critics is Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who lost his primary to Trump-backed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who subsequently lost to Democrat James Talarico on Tuesday.

Cornyn, in an op-ed Wednesday for The Wall Street Journal, accused Trump of “misreading the mandate” that voters gave him and the party in 2024 and cited tariffs, “hyperaggressive immigration enforcement,” the Iran war and Trump signaling “disconnection by focusing on sideshows like swimming-pool liners in the Reflecting Pool.”

Cornyn also criticized his party for promoting unlikeable candidates like Paxton and Rep. Mike Collins — who lost the Senate race in Georgia — with too many scandals and character flaws.

Republicans lost because they had forgotten how to build a political coalition and instead “shrank the tent,” Cornyn wrote.

“In Texas, statewide candidate Bo French poisoned the well even further with blatant bigotry against Indian-Americans, anathema to the party of Lincoln and Reagan. When nominees show contempt for voters and request a smaller Republican Party, voters oblige them,” Cornyn wrote.

Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah) implicated similar problems in an essay on Substack Tuesday night and called for a philosophical solution: restoring traditional values of the conservative movement espoused by former President Reagan and the pioneers.

“We know from experience, not just theory, that a truly conservative policy agenda fosters the greatest chance for human flourishing—marked by robust economic opportunity, stronger families and households, and a global order led by the United States with help from its democratic allies and partners,” Curtis wrote.

Sen. John Barrasso (Wyo.), Republican whip, said in a post on X that “there are clear lessons” from the election results and that he’s “here for the fight,” but he did not provide much detail.

“Senate Republicans have an opportunity and obligation to show our voters that we are fighting for them,” Barrasso wrote. “In the Senate, we will aggressively oppose terrible ideas that drive our country toward the socialism Democrats embraced. Our commitment is to common sense.” He continued that Republicans’ focus should not waver “from the top priority of driving down prices that have remained stubbornly high.”

Outside groups that have been influential in the GOP so far are also weighing in, with some equally scorching Trump and others suggesting guideposts for the party’s next moves.

Chip Wyatt, government relations director for the Senate at Heritage Action, told The Hill he sees opportunity in the Republican policies that voters aligned with on ballot measures.

In California, for example, voters are looking likely to reject a wealth tax.

In Colorado, voters are on track to approve a ballot measure banning gender confirmation surgeries for minors and one requiring student athletes to participate in sports teams according to their sex assigned at birth.

Similar measures related to student-athletes passed Arizona and Nebraska, and one was looking likely to pass in Washington state as of Wednesday afternoon.

Other states approved ballot measures requiring voter ID verification or proof of citizenship to vote, in line with Republicans’ highly sought Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act that Congress hasn’t taken up.

Those issues, Wyatt said, could be “wedges” that Republicans could continue to lean into for popular support against Democrats.

“When we look at the states, we’re able to look at the individual ballot measures that people are voting for, again, like ostensibly Republican policies that are doing well,” Wyatt said. “I think that provides a good road map for things that the party ought to look to for the future.”