Republican operatives, strategists, officials and allies offer competing explanations
BBC News spoke with a dozen party operatives, campaign officials, White House allies and others, many of whom spoke on background, after Democrats won upset after upset in deep-red states including Texas, Kansas and South Carolina. Initial shock inside the Republican Party on Tuesday night quickly gave way to anger with President Donald Trump. Some Republicans argued that his focus on his legacy and indifference to voter concerns cost the party control of Congress.
Bill Miller, a top Republican lobbyist in Texas, placed the blame directly on Trump. “It’s on him. It’s not on anybody else. It’s a total, complete rejection of President Trump,” Miller said. He called the outcome “a disaster of the first magnitude” and said nobody had anticipated the scale of the defeat.
Gregg Peppin, a Republican strategist in Minnesota, said the result reflected voter reaction to Trump’s policies. “It was just one mistake after another,” Peppin said. “Clearly, in state after state, people did not like the president’s policies.” Other Republicans interviewed by BBC said Trump dragged them down with unpopular policies, a low job approval rating and his obsession with construction projects in Washington.
A White House ally said public disapproval of Trump over the Iran war, tariffs and the administration’s immigration crackdown created a “perfect storm” in November. The same ally said, “There’s palpable frustration [within] the party about how this has all played out,” with much of it directed at Trump, and said anger with Trump “is extremely high.” A second White House ally said Trump’s political aides projected optimism until the final days of the election even as the party’s defeat became clear.
Before the election, Steve Scheffler, the Republican National Committeeman in Iowa, said, “I don’t think his influence is slipping.” Still, he said there were things he wished Trump had said differently. BBC reported that most Republicans expected to lose control of the House and were clear-eyed about the challenge of holding the Senate in a midterm cycle that favored the party out of power. A stronger showing, as happened in 2022 when Democrats under then-President Joe Biden lost nine House seats and gained one in the Senate, would have given Republicans momentum heading into 2028.
Trump was silent for much of election night before posting on Truth Social after the House and Senate were called for Democrats. “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 wrote. He later said in interviews with the New York Times and Fox News that he would accept the results. Trump told Fox he was “a little bit surprised” by the outcome while noting that his party typically fared poorly in midterm elections.
Republican defenses focus on historical midterms, weak candidates and turnout
Trump allies said it was unfair to hold him responsible for the party’s election losses. They pointed to the history of midterm elections and to weak Republican candidates in battleground states including Georgia, Michigan and Texas. Trump and Vice-President JD Vance held dozens of campaign rallies during the run-up to the election, while MAGA Inc., the principal Trump-aligned Super PAC, spent hundreds of millions backing Republican candidates.
BBC reported that the 2026 Democratic gains did not set a record, but Democrats won dozens of House races, gubernatorial contests and Senate seats, including in states where they had not been competitive for decades. Since 1934, a party in the White House had gained seats in only three midterm elections. Before Tuesday, Democrats had not won a Senate seat in Kansas since 1932 and had not won a statewide race in Texas in more than three decades. South Carolina had been considered safe for Republicans only weeks before Election Day.
Image captions in the BBC report said Republican Senator Jon Husted attended an Ohio election event where the seat flipped to Democrat Sherrod Brown. Another said Democrat Josh Turek won Iowa’s Senate seat, while a third said Republican Mike Rogers lost Michigan’s Senate seat to Democrat Abdul El-Sayed.
Ken Paxton, the Republican Senate nominee in Texas, faced criticism from another Texas Republican operative, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The operative said Paxton ran “the worst Senate campaign in the country from either side of the aisle.” The person added, “If Ken’s campaign knocked on 100,000 doors I’d be shocked,” and described Paxton’s Democratic opponent, James Talarico, as running “a really good and smart campaign.” A Reuters image caption said Paxton was defeated by Talarico.
Other Republicans defended Trump’s autumn campaign schedule as a way to balance running the country with midterm travel. Krish Mathrani, the Michigan Republican Party’s youth chair, said, “He’s the president. He’s not going to spend his time campaigning 24/7.” Mathrani said Trump’s rallies helped drive up enthusiasm among Republican voters and declared, “President Trump is a turnout machine.” BBC said that assessment was true in presidential elections, but Trump’s turnout operation had failed to deliver in elections when he was not on the ballot, and 2026 proved no different.
Campaign messaging and convention drew criticism
BBC reported that voters rejected Trump’s argument that the economy was better on his watch and that he was achieving his aims in the war with Iran. Trump’s effort to portray Democrats as extreme socialists also fell flat as voters handed victories to moderates such as Roy Cooper in North Carolina. A Cooper campaign official said, “That just didn’t work with Cooper.” The official added, “Trying to tag him as some socialist liberal, that wasn’t going to fly.”
Over the summer, Trump often seemed disinterested in the midterms as Republicans in Congress shifted their focus to the election. Trump was consumed by the war with Iran abroad and a construction overhaul of Washington at home. The projects included an under-construction ballroom, a helipad on the White House’s South Lawn, renovations to a local golf course, a proposed memorial arch near Arlington Cemetery and renovations to the Kennedy Center. Several sources said a UFC match at the White House on Trump’s 80th birthday in June created the impression that he was more interested in feting himself than winning the midterms. Trump also repeatedly downplayed rising gas costs and cast the affordability issue as a Democratic hoax.
Trump turned his full attention to the election in September at the Republican Party’s midterm convention in Dallas. The event was a gamble: Republicans had not held a midterm convention in decades, and it was an open question whether voters would tune in. Trump dominated the convention, frustrating Republicans who wanted to highlight the party’s midterm candidates.
In his keynote speech, Trump pledged to give $5,000 (£3,700) to anyone who voted for Republicans and criticized Paxton’s lack of charisma and physical appearance. Robin Armstrong, the Texas Republican National Committeeman, said of Trump’s critique of Paxton, “Obviously, that’s never helpful.” He added, “You’re not going to stop what President Trump says. We just have to kind of live with that.” The convention failed to attract a large television audience, and Democrats quickly called it a failure. Texas Democratic Party executive director Terri Burke said, “It backfired for Republicans because nobody paid any attention to it.”
During the final campaign weeks, Trump praised Republican Senator John Husted’s physique and drew criticism for calling Abdul El-Sayed a “jihadist” in the Michigan Senate race. The White House also faced personnel disruptions. Katie Zacharia was ousted after five days as press secretary, while Kimberly Guilfoyle resigned as ambassador to Greece after reports surfaced that she asked a donor to pay her credit card debt.
Trump faced a backlash in October after agreeing to buy Russian diesel in a deal that blindsided members of Congress and drew condemnation from some Republicans. The agreement came weeks after he signed a sanctions bill aimed at cutting off Russian oil and gas revenue. BBC reported that Democrats used the diesel deal and other White House controversies to make their case for retaking Congress, and that the messaging resonated as Democrats flipped both chambers.
Republicans turn to an unsettled 2028 race
The election leaves Trump facing a motivated Democratic majority in Congress that is eager to investigate the administration, block his judicial nominees and stymie the rest of his agenda. BBC said the midterms ushered in an uncertain new phase of Trump’s second term and may force Republicans to grapple with their post-Trump future.
As Republicans took stock of the losses, several said they were ready to look ahead to the 2028 election. Scheffler said the potential field included JD Vance, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz and that Republicans had “a pretty big bench.” He added, “It’ll be a wide open race.” Peppin said the midterm results demonstrated that the party needed a new direction. “I sincerely hope that we’ve turned the page from the Trump era, and that we’ll have new players, new issues and a new focus moving forward.”