Donald Trump says that Vance’s comment about Iran war kneecapping Republicans in catastrophic midterms is ‘largely true’
Donald Trump responded to JD Vance’s comments today that the war in Iran was ultimately the reason behind the catastrophic Republican losses in the House and Senate in this year’s midterms.
“I think it’s largely true because it drove the gasoline up a little bit short term,” Trump said. “But at the same time … I’d have to do it again because long term, it’s the only answer.”
The president said that he felt the decision to begin the conflict was unavoidable. “I thought the oil would go up a lot more,” Trump said. “You have no choice. You have to do it. You can’t let Iran have a nuclear weapon.”
Trump once again insisted that if he were on the ballot Republicans would have won their races, which in many cases they lost to Democrats in historic landslides.
“They just couldn’t transfer that love,” Trump said. “There was such love at those rallies. It was incredible. We weren’t able to transfer the love to candidates.”
Key events
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What the downfall of near three-decade senator Susan Collins says about Republican unpopularity
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Democrat Leticia Gutierrez wins gerrymandered Texas House seat
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Viewers stayed away from Fox News on a disappointing election night for Republicans
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What will Democrats do with the blue tsunami? – podcast
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Progressive environmental organizer Will Lawrence flips swing Michigan House district
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Republican David Valadao loses California House seat to progressive challenger
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The midterms were a thumping rebuke of the US-Israel relationship – analysis
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Scalise and Jordan launch minority leader runs, pledging to lead GOP on path back to majority after midterms rebuke
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Democrats’ triumph deals devastating blow to Trump – podcast
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Major races we’re still waiting on, and when we might know the result
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Donald Trump says that Vance’s comment about Iran war kneecapping Republicans in catastrophic midterms is ‘largely true’
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Top House Democrat says party will hold hearings and pass regulations on AI, datacenters
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Trump avoids speaking about stunning Republican losses in first public event post-midterms
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Democrat Christina Bertrand Hines flips red Michigan House district
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Hakeem Jeffries: Democrats have been handed a mandate ‘to make life more affordable’
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Mississippi US Senate race still on knife’s edge with 96% of votes counted
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Schumer says Democrats’ priorities are reducing costs and ending corruption after taking control of Congress
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JD Vance says it’s ‘obvious to almost everyone’ that war on Iran is ‘the reason we lost’ midterms
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‘We want our taxes spent here’: 12 Democrats weigh in after sweeping the US midterm elections
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‘The people of America have spoken’: world leaders react to US midterm elections
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Midterms: how the blue wave took Congress in three minutes – video
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Jim Jordan, Steve Scalise among Republicans looking to replace Johnson as top House Republican, reports say
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Mike Johnson not to seek minority leadership role, reports say
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‘PSA: Trump is still your president,’ White House posts on Instagram
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Wall Street opens higher after Democrats secure Congress
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Mike Johnson won’t seek minority leadership, as Jim Jordan eyes the role: media reports
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A blue tsunami wipes out Republicans – podcast
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‘A win the size of Texas’: Democrats celebrate shrinking Republican dominance in a big state
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In GOP midterm defeat, British prime minister sees ‘opportunity’ to work together to address Iran war, cost of living
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Mark Teixeira, Former Yankees all-star and World Series champion, wins House race in Texas
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Trump ally Lauren Boebert at risk of losing Congress seat in Colorado’s 4th District to Democrat challenger
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Democrats secure majority in the House as voters punish Republican Party
What the downfall of near three-decade senator Susan Collins says about Republican unpopularity
Robert Tait
in Portland, Maine
The political demise of Susan Collins – a fixture of Maine and Washington politics for three decades – recalls the famous line in Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises about how one of the novel’s characters experienced bankruptcy: gradually, then suddenly.
In the run up to Tuesday’s stunning Democrat “blue wave” election triumph, it seemed obvious that Collins’ 30-year tenure as Maine’s Republican senator was vulnerable to the challenge of Troy Jackson, the Democrats’ explicitly working-class candidate, as voters prepared to unleash pent-up anger with Donald Trump’s presidency.
Rather like the Berlin Wall in the days before it finally fell in 1989, however, no one seemed to believe it could really happen until it did.
Collins, after all, had survived seemingly credible electoral challenges before and appeared primed – despite opinion polls showing a close race – to win a sixth Senate term, having once pledged to serve only two. She had become something of a state institution, with her assertions that Washington connections brought federal funds and contracts to Maine carrying weight with many constituents.
Jackson, meanwhile, seemed a less-than-polished prospect for a state that had previously sent such august figures as Ed Muskie, George Mitchell and Bill Cohen to the US Senate before they went on to become international statesmen.
The realization that this elemental political force was about to sweep away Collins came late in the evening, when – with about 60% of the ballots counted – returns showed Jackson with a convincing lead. Within minutes, MS Now reported that Collins had called to concede; wild cheers and chants of “Troy, Troy” filled the ballroom at Portland’s Holiday Inn.
Amid the euphoria, it was left to Jackson to deliver a message of humble, down-to-earth populism that emphasized his trade union background and underlined that his unlikely triumph had been driven by grassroots discontent.
“You understood what it would mean to send one of your own to the United States Senate,” he told the crowd. “Donald Trump and the billionaires need to understand one thing very clear – something about your new senator. I don’t owe them a damn thing.
“When they threaten your healthcare, your livelihood, or your freedoms, I am going to stand up to them. You know where I’ll stand. You know how I’ll vote. And when you’ve got a question about it, you’ll be able to ask me yourself. I’m not acting like I’m the best thing that ever happened to the US Senate or anything like that.”
It was a promise of accessibility that critics say Collins never provided – despite her claims of independent-mindedness and protestations of frequently voting against Trump, who failed to carry Maine in any of his three presidential campaigns.
You can read Robert’s full analysis here:
Democrat Leticia Gutierrez wins gerrymandered Texas House seat
Democrat Leticia Gutierrez has won the race for Texas’ ninth congressional district, a seat that was gerrymandered in 2025 to benefit Republicans. It’s another example of how the GOP’s mid-decade redistricting push ultimately backfired this cycle.
Gutierrez beat her Republican challenger Alex Mealer for control of the district, which includes the greater Houston area.
Viewers stayed away from Fox News on a disappointing election night for Republicans
Jeremy Barr
On a midterm election night that was a huge disappointment for Republicans, with Democrats taking control of the US House and Senate, the country’s most prominent conservative television network felt the brunt of viewer disillusionment with Donald Trump and his party, according to preliminary audience numbers.
The Fox News Channel, which often leads in viewership on election night, appears to have come out far behind the competition. According to preliminary “Fast Nationals” ratings dating from the Nielsen firm, the network averaged 3.882 million total viewers between 8 and 11pm, far behind broadcast networks NBC (6.519 million viewers) and ABC (4.906 million viewers), and even trailing fellow cable networks CNN (3.927 million viewers) and MS Now (3.922 million viewers). Fox News did, however, defeat CBS News, which attracted just 2.629 million viewers.
The numbers are preliminary, and are likely to be revised upwards when final audience data is released tomorrow.
Overall, the big six television networks averaged 25.784 million total viewers during prime-time election coverage, up from 22.215 million total viewers in 2022. During those 2022 elections, Fox News averaged 7.422 million viewers.
With Trump reaching historic levels of unpopularity, Fox News has seen viewers tune out in recent months. Last month, the network’s viewership was down 27% compared with the same month last year in total day viewers, though it still handily defeated CNN and MS Now. Lachlan Murdoch, the chief executive of parent company Fox Corp, acknowledged “viewer fatigue” in an earnings call on Monday.
Trump, who criticized Fox throughout election night and blamed the network for his party’s losses, poked fun at the network’s October figures in a Truth Social post, chalking up the decline to the channel’s industry-standard practice of booking Democratic candidates for interviews.
“FoxNews Ratings are way down (27%!) because they’re spending too much time covering the Trump Deranged Dumocrats!” he wrote on Tuesday evening. “All of those people who used to watch Fox, and no longer do, get it. It’s them, not me – My numbers are better than they have ever been.”
What will Democrats do with the blue tsunami? – podcast
The historic Democratic victories in the 2026 midterm elections were more than just a rebuke of Donald Trump and his Maga movement – they are a five-alarm fire for the Republican party itself, which may be on the verge of collapse. The sweeping wins in GOP strongholds like Texas, Iowa and Kansas reveal an electorate that is fed up and eager for change. But that anger could turn on Democrats – quick. Now that they run Congress, what can the fractured Democratic coalition achieve? And will they do enough to keep voters on their side in 2028?
In this edition of our Stateside podcast, Kai Wright and Carter Sherman break down what we know about this once-in-a-lifetime election and how this new Congress has the potential to be the most consequential since Reconstruction.
Progressive environmental organizer Will Lawrence flips swing Michigan House district
Democrat Will Lawrence, the progressive environmental organizer, has flipped Michigan’s seventh congressional district.
Lawrence, the co-founder of the youth-led climate justice organization the Sunrise Movement, beat Republican incumbent Tom Barrett – a moderate who has bucked his party while in Congress. Barrett, a first-term House member, flipped the seat red in 2024.
Former Republican Senator and 2012 presidential candidate Mitt Romney took to social media to lament the state of his party after its disastrous defeat in the midterms:
“Bad policy, bad character make bad politics: erratic tariffs, impulsive Iran war, blanket pardons, apparent corruption, weaponized justice, ICE brutality, mountainous deficits, hiding Epstein, abandoning allies and coddling enemies. Hoping for a course correction, for the country and for my party.”
Republican David Valadao loses California House seat to progressive challenger
Republican David Valadao lost his seat in California’s 22nd congressional district to progressive challenger Randy Villegas.
It’s another loss for a moderate Republican incumbent in a competitive, majority-Hispanic district. Valadao was the last GOP representative who voted to impeach Donald Trump.
The midterms were a thumping rebuke of the US-Israel relationship – analysis
Alice Speri
On the eve of a midterm election that ended in an unequivocal rejection of his brand of politics, even Donald Trump seemed to recognize that the US-Israel relationship has become a political liability.
Trump’s 11th-hour suggestion, on election morning, that he would cut military aid to Israel at the end of the year because, as he put it, “they don’t need it”, was condemned across the board – with pro-Palestinian advocates dismissing it as “desperate” and pro-Israel ones as “unserious”.
Trump’s suggestion that he would replace nearly $4bn in annual military aid with arms sales signaled little would change in practice – the funding would continue and it would be harder to track. But it was still a notable recognition by the president of just how much support for Israel has tanked against the backdrop of the latest war in Gaza, which has killed more than 70,000 Palestinian, been widely been described as a genocide, and reshaped US politics in ways unthinkable just three years ago.
Indeed, come January, the US House will include an army doctor who went on a medical mission in Gaza, a lawyer who was fired by her firm over a blogpost criticizing Israel’s war, a Jewish lawmaker who was recently detained by Israeli forces while helping Palestinians harvest olives in the occupied West Bank, and a community organizer who participated in a pro-Palestine student encampment and scored one of the primary season’s most stunning upsets under the banner “babies, not bombs”.
Pro-Palestinian candidates – including Palestinian-American ones – have won downballot races. And in Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed became the first Muslim to be elected to the US Senate, following a campaign that saw more than $40m spent by Aipac in an effort to defeat him, last-minute drama, and unprecedented levels of Islamophobic rhetoric and bigotry.
“The old bipartisan consensus on Israel is over,” Beth Miller, political director of Jewish Voice for Peace Action, said. Without that consensus in place, the next Congress could push a number of measures, from an arms embargo on Israel to sanctions against violent settlers and officials – though Trump would retain veto power to block them.
Read the full analysis here:
Scalise and Jordan launch minority leader runs, pledging to lead GOP on path back to majority after midterms rebuke
Louisiana representative Steve Scalise, the No. 2 House Republican, has announced that he will run to be the minority leader, following earlier reports that House speaker Mike Johnson is not planning to run for a leadership position in the next Congress.
Scalise, who has been in House GOP leadership for over a decade, emphasized his experience in a letter to his colleagues. He called for “substantive changes to the way our conference operates, including clear expectation-setting with meaningful accountability.” He also stressed that the party needed unity and a “clear vision and agenda” to win back the trust of voters in 2028.
Indeed, whomever wins the position will play a pivotal role in leading the Republican party as it enters the minority for the first time in four years after its brutal midterms losses. “I am ready to lead on day one and chart our path back to the majority,” Scalise wrote.
His announcement will pit him once again against Ohio representative Jim Jordan, the hard-line conservative who chairs the judiciary committee, who also announced his bid today. Both men unsuccessfully vied for the position of speaker in 2023.
“As we look to the future, we must learn from these results,” Jordan said in his own letter to colleagues.
“In these next two years, our job cannot be merely to spotlight how radical this new Democrat party is — offense, not defense, wins elections,” he wrote, pledging to “prioritize making Americans’ neighborhoods safer, keeping more money in their pockets, and protecting enduring American values and freedoms.”
“To restore our majority, we must restore voters’ faith in our ability to deliver on these principles,” he added.
Democrats’ triumph deals devastating blow to Trump – podcast
For some reflection on what Democrats’ historic wins in several Republican strongholds (like Texas, South Carolina and Kansas) tell us about the party’s strategy this midterm cycle, our Washington editor Ankita Rao joined the Guardian’s Today in Focus – The Latest.
Voters have sent a strong message of frustration to the Trump administration over the economy, the cost of living and rising gas prices – leaving Trump a lame-duck president for his final two years in office.
House Democrats will convene starting 18 November to vote on the caucus’s leadership under the new Democratic majority, according to a memo circulated by Democratic House caucus chair Pete Aguilar and and Ted Lieu.
Major races we’re still waiting on, and when we might know the result
There are a few key races that we’re still waiting on for the final result, including the final two Senate contests.
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In Mississippi, 96% of the vote has been counted in the nail-biting US Senate race between Democrat Scott Colom and Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith. As of now Colom is leading by just 65 votes. We could get the final call any minute, in what could be an historic flip. Democrats haven’t won a US Senate seat in Mississippi since 1982, and Trump carried the state by 22 points in 2024.
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In Alaska, the fierce competition for US Senate is still under way and too close to call. As of now, 74% of the vote has been counted and Democrat Peltola is leading the GOP incumbent Dan Sullivan by less than a point. A reminder, Alaska uses ranked choice voting to determine a winner. This means that the winner needs to receive 50% of first choice votes. If that doesn’t happen, the candidate with the fewest “first preference” votes is eliminated, and their supporters’ votes are reassigned to their second choice. That process will continue until one candidate wins a majority. As a result, it means that the final result could take longer than any other race.
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Meanwhile, in the Los Angeles mayoral race, the battle between the Democratic incumbent, Karen Bass, and her progressive challenger Nithya Raman, a city council member, is also one to watch. Only 63% of the vote has been counted so far, and Raman has a narrow lead.
Across the board this midterm cycle there were shifts in favor for Democrats in every category, according to exit poll data compiled by the Associated Press.
Here’s a breakdown, thanks to my colleagues on the data team.
Trump also said that he was not considering replacing Pete Hegseth as defense secretary. “I think he’s doing a very good job,” the president said.
This comes after reports circulated that Marsha Blackburn could appoint Hegseth to finish out the remainder of her US Senate seat in Tennessee, after she won her contest for governor.
“I actually think he’d be very popular if he did that. But I haven’t heard that at all,” the president added.
