Republicans across the US did not take long to turn on each other as it became clear they would lose both the House and Senate.
They blamed Donald Trump for attacking Iran, breaking pledges including no new wars and lower costs. They also blamed him for bulldozing the White House ballroom, taking a jet from Qatar, earning $2 billion in his first year in office, and initially resisting Congress’s effort to release the Jeffrey Epstein files. And they blamed Trump for federal agents shooting and killing US citizens in Minneapolis.
“It’s hard to think of a [White House] that’s sabotaged House and Senate candidates more than this one,” Trump’s former director of legislative affairs Marc Short posted on X. “It’s time for Republicans to do some soul-searching.”
The party’s Senate candidates lost in North Carolina, Iowa, South Carolina, Texas and Kansas – states that had not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 2008, 2008, 1998, 1988 and 1932. Susan Collins lost in Maine, after serving in the Senate for 30 years.
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Those in touch with the White House said the mood was “bad” and “sombre”. The heads of the House and Senate campaign arms both had embarrassing losses: Richard Hudson lost his own House seat in North Carolina and Tim Scott saw his South Carolina seat turn blue.
“After the Biden era, Americans wanted an economy that worked for them. Instead, they received a hastily executed war, headline after headline of scandals, a ballooning $40tn debt, and unpredictable tariffs,” said Utah senator John Curtis. “It’s time for Republicans to return to the principled conservative values that once defined us – and that we’ve steadily abandoned.”
Some said the party as they knew it was done.
“Colossal failure at all levels,” said Roy Bailey, who raised money for Trump’s 2016 campaign and Ron DeSantis’s 2024 campaign. “A complete referendum on Trump!”
“I hate to say it, but America is over,” posted Maga activist Laura Loomer on X.
Others blamed the candidates and Trump’s staff.
Caroline Sunshine, a former Trump campaign spokesperson, called for chief of staff Susie Wiles to resign. “We got wiped out,” she wrote to the Financial Times. “The coalition Trump built in 2024 got burned down tonight ... if she cares about the future of the GOP, she’ll take that accountability.”
A Republican operative close to the White House attacked the party’s candidates and said: “I think the Republican Party is going to be dead, when the president is gone.”
Interpersonal rivalries spilled out.
In South Carolina, Ralph Norman, who ran against the Trump-endorsed Darline Graham in the GOP primary, texted that his opponent lost because “the President along with the Republican Establishment tried to PROP UP and FORCE SC to elect a candidate that the voters revolted against”.
Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie went after losing Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy for airing an ad featuring the estranged mother of his Democratic opponent Amy Acton. “The ad was an X-ray of Vivek’s rotten moral centre,” said Christie, who ran against Ramaswamy in the 2024 presidential primary.
Kansas, where a Democrat had not won a Senate seat in nearly 100 years, was a particularly sore spot, with senator Roger Marshall damaged by the New York Times revealing he sued hundreds of patients over outstanding bills during his medical career. “Marshall is the worst senator in the history of Kansas,” said one Kansas GOP operative.
Trump, of course, insisted he would have won: “I wasn’t on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!” – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2026
How we’re covering the US midterms
