Trump lashes out with spurious claim that Republican losses were because he wasn't on ballot

REACTING TO BRUTAL losses for his party across races for Congress in the House and the Senate, US President Donald Trump has claimed the reason for defeat was because he was not on the ballot. 

Ignoring his appearances at various rallies in which he implored his supporters to vote as if he was on the ballot, Trump posted online to remind people he was not. 

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“I wasn’t on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE! Thank you for your attention to this matter,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform.

The 80-year-old president himself had appeared agitated before the first results even came in, posting a string of angry messages on social media lashing out at conservative broadcaster Fox News’s coverage.

But after initially saying Trump was “cautiously optimistic,” the mood music changed as Democrats looked increasingly likely to deal the president a bruising setback that could upend his last two years in power.

“The White House mood is defiant,” a White House official told AFP.

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The official however questioned the quality of Republican candidates for the House and Senate — many of whom Trump had endorsed and traveled across the country to rally support for.

“Candidate quality matters, and President Trump did a better job promoting many of the candidates on the ballot than the candidates did themselves,” the White House official said.

With reporting by ©-AFP 2026