Trump calls Fox polls ‘terrible’ after Republican midterm losses

Fox commentators cited voter impatience and historical weakness

Donald Trump blamed Fox News for the Republican Party’s failure to hold the US House and Senate in the 2026 midterms, but The Guardian’s account of the network’s election-night panel pointed in the opposite direction. After watching more than six and a half hours of coverage, The Guardian reported that Fox News commentators seemed to take pains not to tie the losses directly to Trump. The outlet found no suggestions that the party should back away from him and described an overwhelming consensus that blame should not be placed squarely at his feet.

Several Fox News commentators focused on voters. Host Jesse Watters, speaking just after 8pm, called them “impatient” and said they wanted “instant gratification.” Many commentators said the president’s party historically performs poorly in midterm elections. Conservative commentators also directed attacks at the Democratic Party, agreeing that Democrats would overstay their welcome with voters and misinterpret their victory as a mandate, paving the way for Republican wins in 2028.

Several Fox News commentators said voters seemed to be unhappy with Trump’s decision to launch a war against Iran, particularly considering the rise in gas prices that resulted from it. Sean Hannity agreed with Baier that the night’s outcome would have been different if Trump had not bombed the country. Watters offered a related explanation later in the night: “I think it’s prices. People are mad.”

The Guardian identified the White House’s messaging strategy and Trump’s decision to go to war in Iran as the only significant criticisms of the president during the coverage. Kudlow and Perino addressed messaging, while several other commentators discussed Iran and gas prices. Larry Kudlow, a Fox Business Network host who served as Trump’s Director of the National Economic Council during his first administration, said, “In some sense, Mr Trump was too successful in the first year and didn’t sell it enough in the second year,” The Guardian reported. Dana Perino, who served as press secretary to George W Bush, said: “From a messaging standpoint, a lot of times the administration has got too many balls in the air and it’s hard to figure out what is the headline we want to drive.”

The Fox News panel included several former Trump administration employees, including his most recent press secretary, Karoline Leavitt. Leavitt singled out the media for blame, saying, “Unfortunately, I think the American people forgot about the good policy, [and] maybe listened to the lying media on the other side that is definitely in the back seat of the Democratic party,” The Guardian reported. Just before 10pm, Fox News host Will Cain said: “I look at the pros and the cons of the last two years under Donald Trump, and the pros significantly outweigh the cons.” Primetime host Laura Ingraham acknowledged that the election was a “referendum on Trump,” but said that “overwhelmingly his policies have been phenomenal for the country. Overwhelmingly, the stuff he’s promised, he’s done, and it’s worked out fabulously.” Despite his earlier comments, Hannity said Trump’s policies “are rock solid,” that Iran “had to be done” and that his intervention would eventually be proven right.

Against that panel response, Trump had made clear in the weeks before the midterms that he would place some blame on Fox if his party did poorly. On election day, before races really started to be called, he posted multiple times on Truth Social. The posts criticized Fox for featuring Democratic pundit Jessica Tarlov, called its polls “always the worst,” mocked recent softness in the network’s year-over-year ratings trends and accused Fox of being “AGAINST” him. Just before midnight, he wrote that “FoxNews bears responsibility for these losses by constantly and consistently putting on the Dumocrat opposition, and worse.”

Trump’s criticism continued into the network’s election coverage. Around midnight, he called into Fox’s coverage, directly criticized the network’s polls as “terrible” and told the network’s employees: “You ought to get yourself a good pollster, because your pollsters are the worst.” Fox News anchor Bret Baier pushed back gently, pointing out that “tonight, actually, the results are pretty close to what the Fox polls showed.” Trump also criticized Baier, or Fox more broadly, for not supporting him “when it wasn’t fashionable.” The Guardian said Trump remained extremely critical of the network throughout the day and night.

Trump himself also rejected responsibility for the losses. “I don’t view it as a hit on me,” he told the Fox News panel. He added that “historically, I think I’ll be judged for having done the right thing,” largely placed the blame on the Republican candidates who had been defeated and repeated his contention that the outcome would have been different if he had been on the ballot. The episode left Fox’s own broadcast at the center of the political dispute it was covering, with Trump assigning the network responsibility while the panel’s consensus rejected placing the losses squarely on him.