Vance: 'The reason we lost is the war'

Hailey Branson-Potts, Los Angeles Times on Nov 4, 2026

By clicking submit, I authorize Arcamax and its affiliates to: (1) use, sell, and share my information for marketing purposes, including cross-context behavioral advertising, as described in our Privacy Policy , (2) add to information that I provide with other information like interests inferred from web page views, or data lawfully obtained from data brokers, such as past purchase or location data, or publicly available data, (3) contact me or enable others to contact me by email or other means with offers for different types of goods and services, and (4) retain my information while I am engaging with marketing messages that I receive and for a reasonable amount of time thereafter. I understand I can opt out at any time through an email that I receive, or by clicking here

The morning after voters delivered a blistering midterm rebuke of President Donald Trump, with Democrats flipping both chambers of Congress and racking up victories even in deep-red bastions, Vice President JD Vance said there was one main reason for his party’s widespread losses.

“The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night,” Vance wrote in a lengthy post on X on Wednesday, referencing the conflict began in February when U.S. and Israeli forces attacked Iran, killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other top officials.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday night, Trump said the war was partly to blame for the election results.

“Iran was a piece of it,” he told the paper, adding that he believed the rise in oil prices, which skyrocketed as a result of the war, frustrated voters more than the conflict itself.

The president said of the Iran war: “I don’t think about it. I did the right thing. I would have done it again.”

In his 614-word social media post on Wednesday, Vance — who served in the U.S. Marine Corps and was deployed to Iraq in 2005 as a military journalist — wrote that “any honest conversation” about how the GOP moves forward after this election must start with the war.

“If you’d like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so. Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay. Agree or disagree, that’s at least honest,” Vance wrote.

Vance said he had talked to data analysts in the lead-up to the election and that, while polls showed a Democratic blowout, there was “a genuine sense of optimism on our team” because Republican voters appeared to be mobilizing.

“So, I asked the smartest data guy I know, does that mean we’re going to shock the world?” Vance wrote. “‘No,’ he told me. ‘We might do better than the polls suggest. But the data is telling us that a lot of Trump/Vance 2024 voters are pissed and planning to vote for the other guys.”

The vice president acknowledged that, ultimately, many 2024 Trump-Vance voters were angry and voted blue this election.

Vance wrote that one pollster he respects told him that 2024 Trump voters who switched sides listed four ways the GOP could win them back: ending the war, focusing on the cost of living and inflation, putting “America first,” and changing the country’s relationship with Israel.

While immigration is a major issue — with communities across the U.S. upended by the Trump administration’s aggressive and controversial deportation raids — the vice president wrote that focusing on amnesty for immigrants will not win more GOP votes.

“In the next few months, there’s going to be a lot of gaslighting,” Vance wrote. “Expect to hear any number of establishment politicians say the solution to our woes is amnesty. I’m open to the idea that we should change enforcement — by focusing more on businesses that hire illegal labor, for instance. But anyone pushing amnesty is lying to you.”