Vance, America First Conservatives: The War Cost Us the Election. Neocons in Denial

Vice President JD Vance summed up the Democrats’ shellacking of Republicans in yesterday’s midterm election in six words: “The reason we lost is the war.”

Which is exactly what exit polls showed as well.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sold President Trump a bill of goods to get him to attack Iran, while neoconservative warmongers claimed the war would play no role in the election, and now the Democrats have complete control of Congress.

Just as the polling data predicted, and the neocons refused to acknowledge.

“It’s the War, Stupid”

Riffing off Democrat fixer James Carville’s maxim, “it’s the economy, stupid,” about the 1992 presidential contest in which Bill Clinton defeated President George H.W. Bush, Stand Together’s Reid Tillman Smith put it this way: “It’s the war stupid.”

Responsible Statecraft explained. “Exit polling showed 74% of voters said the Iran War was a ‘crucial’ or ‘major’ factor in their vote,” the website’s Blaise Malley wrote:

Exit polling also found that 62% of voters believed using military force against Iran was the “wrong decision.”

This all jibed with polls leading up to the midterms. Gallup reported last week that 77% of registered voters considered the situation in Iran “extremely” or “very important” to their vote, placing it among the top issues surveyed, alongside the economy and healthcare. A late-October NetChoice/Echelon Insights poll of six swing states found that “ending the war with Iran” was voters’ third most commonly-cited priority, behind only the cost of living and jobs.

But then we have the Trump administration’s No. 2. He said the same thing.

“One of the pollsters I really respect told me that our economic messaging wasn’t sharp enough down the stretch,” Vance wrote today:

I’m sure that’s true. 

But the real reason we lost is obvious to almost everyone. 

Another pollster — one of the smartest people I know in politics, told me yesterday we’d lose the generic ballot by 13 points.… In his polling, he saw that a lot of Trump 2024 voters were angry and planning to vote for Democrats. He asked those voters who had abandoned us what would cause them to come back on our team. The top four answers, accounting for nearly all of the responses were:

1) End the war

2) Focus on cost of living/inflation

3) Put America First

4) Change our relationship to Israel

Our voters showed up. And the above four reasons are why many of them voted for Democrats.…

The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night.…

[E]everyone knows why we lost. And any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there.

“We had a generational opportunity and a massive coalition in 2024, and neocons pissed it all away for yet another pointless Middle East war,” The Federalist’s Sean Davis wrote on X.

“Trump chose to mortgage his presidency and his party to Mark Levin, Lindsey Graham and other ‘former’ NeverTrumpers, and it worked out exactly as you’d expect,” averred commentator Mark Steyn.

Neocons in Denial

Neocon warmongers said the Iran War would not affect the election. 

“There is no downside to striking the regime,” chickenhawk Marc Thiessen wrote for The Washington Post in January:

Trump has already done so twice, and each time, Iran was unable or unwilling to retaliate.

In July, he wrote that “young MAGA voters” want the U.S. traipsing around the world, sticking its nose into the business of other countries.

“Marc Thiessen is the Anthony Fauci of 2026,” Davis wrote over a screenshot of Thiessen’s January piece:

Trump was on a glide path to the most successful presidency in modern history, and Thiessen rolled in, fed him a bunch of lies, destroyed his approval ratings with neocon forever war nonsense, and left him with a smoking crater where Republicans used to be standing.

In September, chickenhawk podcasters Mark Levin and Ben Shapiro agreed that the war would cost Trump nothing at the polls.

A Fox survey showed that “Iran is a 4 percent issue with the American people,” Levin told Shapiro on Levin’s podcast. “So whatever happens in the midterms, it doesn’t appear that Iran’s going to drive anything one way or another. What’s your take on this?”

Shapiro: “I think that’s exactly right.” 

Except that it was exactly wrong, as leftist British podcaster Piers Morgan explained: “These halfwits have a lot to answer for.”

“Courageous” Decision

And now, the neocons are raising their bet, claiming that Trump’s decision to start a war for Israel was “courageous” and that “other issues” mattered.

Over audio of Trump’s claiming that the decision, “for the long-term good of our country and even the world, was absolutely correct,” Thiessen wrote “Amen”:

Most courageous decision any president has made in my lifetime. Did it knowing it might have political costs, and has not wavered. That is the definition of statesmanship.

“Looks like every issue anyone can imagine is being used as the basis for the midterm loss, apart from historical trends,” Levin wrote on X with a link to a piece on PBC’s Newshour. Levin listed some of those issues, to which outgoing GOP Representative Nancy Mace replied: “Mark Levin is a moron. And heavily contributed to the devastating losses suffered last night by republicans.”

Apparently off his medications, Levin replied with his customary vitriol:

STFU you washed up political loser. You’re angry because you’ll actually have to now work for a living. You’re one of the most mentally unhinged POS to ever be in Congress. We lost last night for many reasons, including because of useless, self-promoting, do-nothings like you. Good riddance, crackpot.

Neocon warmonger Nikki Haley is apparently on another planet. “The biggest lesson is that when Republicans stay close to our policies of economic freedom, lower taxes, and smaller government, we win,” she said on an NBC News panel:

We need to return to that, stop the distractions, and get back to work for the American people.

Referendum on Trump

“Tonight’s outcome isn’t about placing faith in Democrats or socialist principles; it’s about holding Republicans accountable for betraying their promises,” outgoing GOP Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky wrote on X:

All Republicans had to do was:

1. put Americans First

2. not start another war

3. prosecute sex traffickers

The election was “a total referendum on Trump,” former GOP Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote on X:

He told people to vote like he was on the ballot and they did.