President Donald Trump was quick to diagnose what led to a bad night at the polls for Republicans, but his post-election read on what went wrong underscored how the GOP has major issues that won’t be easy to fix for the 2026 midterm elections and beyond.
On Wednesday morning, hours after Democrats racked up decisive wins in New Jersey, Virginia, New York, Pennsylvania, and California, Trump called on Senate Republicans, once again, to take the so-called “nuclear option” against the filibuster during a breakfast at the White House to end the government shutdown that has stretched over 30 days.
“If you read the pollsters, the shutdown was a big factor, negative for the Republicans,” the president said, seemingly acknowledging that voters now associate the record-breaking shutdown with the Republicans, and not the Democrats.
Without the prying eyes of reporters, Trump told the lawmakers that Democrats’ clean sweep of the statewide elections underscored that Republicans will become a “dead party” if the GOP does not repeal the Senate’s filibuster rule. However, eliminating the filibuster will likely undermine Republicans when Democrats eventually regain control of Congress, as Democrats have long considered eliminating it to advance their own policy objectives.
New York City-based Republican strategist Evan Siegfried, whose city this week elected Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani as its next mayor, described Trump’s response to the elections as unsurprisingly Trumpian.
“He’s never going to admit to anything,” Siegfried told the Washington Examiner. “He’s falling into the trap right now that [former President] Joe Biden did during his presidency. He’s running around saying the economy is doing really well, and on paper it is, but success on Wall Street doesn’t necessarily translate into success on Main Street. There are people out there, including hardcore Trump voters, who are still having economic anxiety and saying that they can’t also figure out how to pay their bills.”
For Siegfried, the bigger concern for Republicans before next year’s midterm elections should be the party’s standing among independent and centrist voters.
“Voters are giving him less patience to do something,” he said. “Him pushing for the filibuster to be removed is much more about how he and his team, they won’t say it publicly, but privately, they know the government shutdown is pissing people off.”
Across the Hudson River, New Jersey-based Republican strategist Jeanette Hoffman acknowledged this week’s elections were “a complete ‘bluebath’ nationally,” not only because of Mamdani’s win in New York City but also because of Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill’s win in Hoffman’s home state and Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger’s in Virginia.
That is not forgetting Attorney General-elect Jay Jones’ win in Virginia, despite the emergence of text messages he sent in 2022 about shooting the commonwealth’s former Republican House Speaker, Todd Gilbert, reemerging last month.
“When a proud socialist wins as mayor in NYC and a Democrat who sends murderous texts is elected attorney general in Virginia, you know something is up,” Hoffman told the Washington Examiner. “Trump may help his party when he’s on the ticket, but his policies were rejected by voters, who were promised a new era of affordability.”
“When Democrats are winning on the economy in the eyes of the electorate, Republicans have a big problem,” she continued. “President Trump and Republicans need to focus on the economy, including getting rid of tariffs, and end the government shutdown to get back on track with voters.”
Trump’s ballot absence hurts GOP, again
Furthermore, Trump hit on an uncomfortable truth on Wednesday morning that Republicans have wrestled with for years: when he is not on the ballot, the GOP struggles with turnout.
“They say that I wasn’t on the ballot was the biggest factor,” Trump told Senate Republicans on Wednesday. “I don’t know about that, but I was honored that they said that.”
Trump, a two-term presidential incumbent, will never be on the ballot again, regardless of the likes of former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon pushing a third term. He may well have been “honored” by talk of him not being on the ballot affecting the vote, but for Republican-turned-independent political strategist Dan Schnur, that’s a problem.
“[Trump] is right about one thing,” Schnur explained to the Washington Examiner. “Now that he has made the Republican Party in his image, he is the only party leader who can motivate GOP activists to vote.”
He added: “That seems to call for the development of a new generation of leaders, but it’s not clear that doing so will help JD Vance or Marco Rubio — or any other Republican— inspire a base that is so uniquely loyal to Trump himself.”
To that end, Vance dismissed criticism of Trump based on this week’s elections, contending it is “idiotic to overreact to a couple of elections in blue states” and that “infighting is stupid.”
“We need to focus on the home front,” the vice president wrote on social media. “The president has done a lot that has already paid off in lower interest rates and lower inflation, but we inherited a disaster from Joe Biden, and Rome wasn’t built in a day. We’re going to keep on working to make a decent life affordable in this country, and that’s the metric by which we’ll ultimately be judged in 2026 and beyond.”
Meanwhile, Trump and the White House on Wednesday commemorated 12 months since the president’s historic election win last year over former Vice President Kamala Harris.
“Happy Anniversary!” Trump wrote on social media. “On this day, November 5th, one year ago, we had one of the Greatest Presidential Victories in History — Such an Honor to represent our Country. Our Economy is BOOMING, and Costs are coming way down. Affordability is our goal. Love to the American People!”
White House communications director Steven Cheung echoed Trump on his own social media account: “Beautiful day at the White House from the Rose Garden. No Panicans!”
Regardless of the projected confidence, Trump appeared to concede to poor public opinion regarding his economy during his address on Wednesday to the American Business Forum in Miami.
“We have the greatest economy right now, a lot of people don’t see that,” he said. “These are things you have to talk about. It doesn’t just happen. It’s wonderful to do them, but if people don’t talk about them, then you can do not so well in elections.”
A year before next year’s elections, Democrats have an average of four percentage points advantage over Republicans in generic congressional ballot polling, according to RealClearPolitics. The same polling aggregator has Trump’s average economic approval at a net negative 11 points, and a majority of respondents consider the country to be on the wrong track, with an average of 38% respondents saying ‘right direction’ and 57% saying ‘wrong track.’
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The likes of former White House chief political strategist Steve Bannon, who helped Trump win his 2016 campaign against the then-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, also conceded Trump and Republicans’ economic problems, arguing, “There should be flashing red lights all over.”
“People need to feel that the economy is working for them,” Bannon told Politico. “The program is the right program. It just needs to be executed. And I think people need to feel that it’s being executed.”
