A Republican political expert on why the GOP got thrashed in California and nationwide

Republicans woke up Wednesday looking for someone to blame. Vice President JD Vance found a target. “The reason we lost is the war,” he wrote on X.

Vance was half right, and that’s better than most of my party managed in this election.

The war mattered. Nearly three in four voters told exit pollsters it was a major factor in their vote, and 62% said using force against Iran was the wrong decision. When the Fox News Voter Poll asked voters to choose between ending the fighting to bring down gas prices and restarting strikes to stop Iran’s nuclear program, the gas pump won almost two to one.

Conservatives used to be the people who focused on economic issues and were skeptical of open-ended wars. We have given both principles away.

But the war alone didn’t cause Republicans to lose big in this election.

The same Fox poll found tariffs and government corruption pushed voters away too. A tariff is a tax paid at the checkout line. Republicans used to know that. More than 60% held Trump responsible for high prices, and his 38% approval rating reflected voter sentiment. That’s a lower rating than any evaluating the past four presidents.

Then there Trump’s behavior, the noise voters stopped tolerating long ago.

During the campaign, Trump told voters to pretend he was on the ballot. They did exactly that. Then, with ballots still being counted, he posted on Truth Social that he wasn’t on the ballot and that if he had been, Republicans would have won in a landslide.

That is simply not true. He was on the ballot because he asked to be. Fifty-nine percent of voters told CBS the president factored into their House vote. They pretended, just as he asked. Then they voted against him.

We have seen this movie before.

In 2018, Trump’s disapproval ran about 10 points higher than his approval rating, and Republicans lost 41 House seats. In 2024, voters had given him a Congress and a chance. He spent that chance on tariffs and tweets. This year he went into Election Day more than 20 points underwater. The president was given a chance to bring prices down. On Tuesday night, voters were done giving Trump chances.

And voters went further than they did in 2018. That election cost Republicans the House. This one cost them both chambers. Then there is Mississippi. Cook Political Report rated Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith’s seat “Solid Republican.” On election night, fewer than 30 votes separated the candidates. When Mississippi is a coin flip, no Republican seat in this country is safe.

Redistricting was supposed to be the insurance policy. Florida Republicans redrew their map to squeeze out more seats. Instead, Democrats claimed four seats Trump carried by nine points or more. Spread your voters across more districts, and you have fewer to spare. No map survives a 20-point approval hole.

Here in California, Steve Hilton showed the other half of the problem. Trump’s endorsement helped him pull away from Sheriff Chad Bianco in the primary. Then Trump’s endorsement became an anchor. Hilton sits near 35% in early returns. The Trump endorsement that wins a Republican primary now loses a general election.

The fix for Republicans is not complicated. Acknowledge the problems: the war, the tariffs, the prices and the behavior. Address them. Adjust.

That did not happen after 2018. The White House kept the tone and the style, and two years later Republicans lost the presidency. The early signs point to a rerun. Trump conceded only that Iran was “a piece of it,” and he told the New York Times he would go to war again.

A party that will not learn from voters gets taught by them. Republicans have now been taken to school by voters twice in eight years. The lesson painful. Let’s not do this again. Let’s stop being crazy.

Matt Rexroad is a conservative, who happens to be a Republican. He is also an attorney, political consultant and certified fraud examiner.

This story was originally published November 4, 2026 at 2:51 PM with the headline "A Republican political expert on why the GOP got thrashed in California and nationwide."