Alan Stephens is an investigative reporter covering gun violence, weapons trafficking and federal law enforcement issues.
To say Americans That we are angry is an understatement.
On Tuesday, Democrats not only seized control of both houses of Congress. They redrawn America’s political map, seizing Republican offices that had been reliable for generations from the Deep South to Kansas and Texas. The Lone Star State alone has 40 Electoral College votes, now raising the possibility that the calculations for future presidential elections will change dramatically.
The scale of the historic Democratic wave is undoubtedly a rebuke to America’s so-called populist president. The message is simple and clear: We don’t like you.
Americans’ rapid disillusionment with the Trump administration can largely be traced to one word— Iran — and the series of economic hardships Americans experienced as the war dragged on.
The Iran war has gone from a test of Republican loyalty to a political liability.
For Republicans, the threat is existential. For many former supporters, the war has turned from a test of Republican loyalty into a political liability, and many Republicans are now abandoning the war to save their political futures.
By Wednesday, this had become the leading explanation for the party’s crushing electoral defeat, with Vice President J.D. Vance unequivocally declaring on X that “the reason we lost was the war.”
“If you want to argue that it’s worth it, that losing the Senate for the next six years is worth it, then do so. Argue that it’s worth the price. Agree or disagree, it’s at least honest,” he wrote. “But everyone knows why we lost. Any honest conversation about where we go from here has to start there.” Coming from the mouth of Trump’s own vice president, it’s a stunning turn of events.
The tirade also raises an awkward question ahead of the 2028 presidential campaign: How would MAGA’s potential successors respond to a war waged by their own administration?
However, Trump did not go as far as his vice president. Although the president acknowledged that the war hurt Republicans, he continued to defend the war on its merits. “We have to do something about Iran and we’re going to continue to do it,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday after detailing his visit to the White House ballroom.
Where have all the warmongers gone?
But on the campaign trail, Republicans didn’t entirely ignore Americans’ collective frustration with the war with Iran.
In September, ABC News identified 17 Republican lawmakers and candidates who had called for an end to the war through public statements or votes. Much of the pressure comes from hotly contested midterm elections as the impact of the conflict on oil, diesel and fertilizer prices ripples through American households.
In Iowa, Republican Senate candidate Ashley Hinson in September called for a “successful and immediate end” to the war, warning voters were paying the price at gas stations and grocery stores. Yet she voted six times against House measures directing Trump to halt his attacks. In an interview with ABC on October 25, Hinson said she would not rule out the possibility of a U.S. attack after the election and said she believed Trump and the military would choose the right timetable. The tepid break with Trump wasn’t enough to push Hinson over the line, and she lost to Democrat Josh Turek by 4.5 percentage points, even though the president praised her weight loss efforts at a recent rally.
Michigan also has repeat customers from Iran. When the bombings began on February 28, Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers described Iran as an “imminent threat.” In May, he called the conflict a potential “win-win.” But as the midterm elections approached, Rogers released campaign ads declaring that “the war with Iran needs to end quickly” and warning that Michigan families could no longer bear the economic consequences.
Rep. John James, the Republican candidate for Michigan governor, also praised Trump’s use of force early in the war, saying the president had the “boldness” to “ensure the survival and success of freedom.” He voted against six House war powers resolutions, including the most recent September resolution. Days after the vote, he said the war needed to end “quickly”. “My position has always been that I hate war,” he said in an interview.
Rodgers and James both lost games.
Even Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, reportedly a potential Republican contender in the next presidential election to take over from Pete Hegseth, warned on Monday that the war was a “very, very big drag” on his party. DeSantis noted that Trump campaigned against another Middle East war. Now voters are grappling with higher fuel costs, and Republicans who refuse to acknowledge the connection are “flaming” them. But as early as this spring, DeSantis defended attacks against Iran’s leadership, calling the Iranian government “a fanatical, apocalyptic, militant Islamic regime.”
The poll helps explain Republican panic. An Associated Press poll found that about 6 in 10 voters believe the United States made the “wrong decision” in attacking Iran. Republicans were not without warning. A few within their own ranks, including Thomas Massie and Rand Paul, opposed the war from the outset and supported efforts to contain it. But these criticisms appear to have fallen on deaf ears.
hasty retreat
With a lot of finger-pointing surrounding him, the criticism has expanded beyond the candidates and into the conservative media ecosystem.
During the network’s primetime election night coverage, Fox News host Sean Hannity told his colleague Bret Baier that the outcome would have been different without the Iran war. Conservative commentator Matt Walsh called the war a betrayal of “America First” principles, called for new Republican leadership, and called the conflict a “catastrophically stupid decision.”
Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene called Trump’s broken promise not to start another foreign war his “biggest betrayal” and said “Americans have had enough.”
Other commentators placed the blame for their party’s political quagmire squarely on Trump himself. In The Federalist Papers, senior editor John Daniel Davidson blamed the party’s collapse on Trump’s destruction of a Republican coalition built on a rejection of the interventionist politics of the George W. Bush era.
Some prominent Republican operatives are sure to be abandoned by their own parties in the retreat. The first person to be fired may be none other than America’s chief “warrior” Hegseth, one of the war’s most ardent and public cheerleaders. The defense secretary responded to the criticism in a nearly six-minute video posted online Thursday in which he appeared to make a case for keeping his job, promoting his “Marxist ideology” that has eliminated diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and labeling transgender service members as suffering from “mental illness.”
“No matter how much people care about this war, which I believe is a courageous and historic effort that will ensure that Iran never acquires a nuclear weapon, we need to continue to rebuild our military as President Trump did in his first term,” he said. “That has nothing to do with me, but of course, the other side, if you notice, they’re obsessed with it.”
Hegseth, already facing growing Republican discontent and a growing list of disaffected and ousted senior military officials, now faces the prospect of investigations by a Democratic-controlled Congress and an impeachment effort led by Massey. While Trump has so far publicly defended his defense secretary, he also reportedly consulted on whether to use Pitt’s ejection seat.
Tuesday’s results showed voters are increasingly willing to hold politicians accountable for unnecessary wars.
But while both Republicans and Democrats read the polls and calculate the political currency of war and economic hardship, the human cost cannot be measured in votes. As of early April, at least 3,636 people had been killed in Iran, including 1,701 civilians and 254 children, according to human rights monitors. More fighting followed and may have caused that number to rise significantly.
At least 23 U.S. service members were killed in war-related operations, and nearly 900 were wounded by enemy fire. But these are estimatethe Trump administration has been working to obfuscate the true casualty rate of the war. These are not election statistics. They are lives lost, families broken, and consequences that will last long after governments swap office space.
For Republicans now eager to distance themselves from a deeply unpopular war, the political fallout may be harder to escape than their own voting records. Tuesday’s results showed voters are increasingly willing to hold politicians accountable for unnecessary wars and the suffering they cause.