'This is a disaster': Angry Republicans blame Trump for midterms defeat

'This is a disaster': Furious Republicans pin midterms loss on Trump

The outcome, one senior Republican lobbyist said, was effectively a rebuke of Trump

Within the Republican Party, the first reaction to Tuesday night’s striking election results was shock, but that quickly turned into anger at US President Donald Trump.

After Democrats pulled off upset after upset in strongly Republican states such as Texas, Kansas and South Carolina, some Republicans directed their frustration at Trump, saying his focus on his own legacy and his disregard for voter concerns had cost the party its grip on Congress.

"It's on him. It's not on anybody else. It's a total, complete rejection of President Trump," Bill Miller, a top Republican lobbyist in Texas, told the BBC. "This is a disaster of the first magnitude. Nobody saw it coming like this."

Most Republicans had expected to lose the House and understood the difficulty of keeping the Senate in a difficult election cycle that favored the party out of power.

But some said in interviews that Trump had dragged them down with unpopular policies, a weak job approval rating and an obsession with construction projects in Washington.

"It was just one mistake after another," said Gregg Peppin, a Republican strategist in Minnesota. "Clearly, in state after state, people did not like the president's policies."

A White House ally said public anger at Trump over the Iran war, tariffs and the administration's immigration crackdown had created a "perfect storm" in November.

"There's palpable frustration [within] the party about how this has all played out," the person said, adding that much of it is aimed at Trump. Anger with Trump "is extremely high".

The BBC spoke with a dozen party operatives, campaign officials, White House allies and others, many of whom spoke on background to give a candid view of Trump's approach to the midterms.

Trump and Republicans had a great deal at stake on Tuesday night. A stronger performance by the president's party - as in 2022, when Democrats under then-President Joe Biden lost only nine House seats and gained one Senate seat - would have given Republicans some momentum heading into 2028.

Instead, Trump will face a energized Democratic majority in Congress that is eager to investigate the administration, block his judicial nominees and slow the rest of his agenda.

The midterms have opened an uncertain new chapter in Trump's second term and may force Republicans to begin confronting their post-Trump future.

"I don't think his influence is slipping," said Steve Scheffler, the Republican National Committeeman in Iowa, speaking on the eve of the election. Still, he said that in the midterms, "there were things you wish he said differently".

Trump stayed silent for much of the night before posting on Truth Social after Democrats were projected to win the House and Senate.

"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.

In later interviews with the New York Times and Fox News, he said he would accept the election results. Trump told Fox he was "a little bit surprised" by the outcome, but noted that the president's party usually performs poorly in midterm elections.

Since 1934, the party in the White House has gained seats in only three midterm elections. Although the Democratic gains in 2026 did not break a record, the party won dozens of House races, governor contests and Senate seats, including in states where it had not been competitive for decades.

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 30 years. The party also scored surprise victories in other reliably red states such as South Carolina, which had been considered safe for Republicans just weeks before Election Day.

Trump and Vice-President JD Vance held dozens of campaign rallies ahead of the midterms. The main Trump-aligned Super PAC, MAGA Inc., spent hundreds of millions of dollars supporting Republican candidates.

Trump allies said it was unfair to blame him for the party's losses. They pointed to the history of midterm elections and said the party was burdened by weak Republican candidates in battleground states such as Georgia, Michigan and Texas.

Ken Paxton, the Republican Senate nominee in Texas, ran "the worst Senate campaign in the country from either side of the aisle," said another Texas Republican operative, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "If Ken's campaign knocked on 100,000 doors I'd be shocked," the source said. The person added that Paxton's victorious Democratic opponent, James Talarico, ran "a really good and smart campaign."

Others defended Trump's fall campaign schedule, saying he had to balance his duties running the country with travel for the midterms.

"He's the president. He's not going to spend his time campaigning 24/7," said Krish Mathrani, the Michigan Republican Party's youth chair. Mathrani said Trump's rallies helped boost Republican enthusiasm. "President Trump is a turnout machine," he said.

That is true in presidential elections. But Trump's much-touted turnout operation has failed to deliver in races when he is not on the ballot, and 2026 was no exception.

Voters rejected Trump's claim that the economy was better under him and that he was succeeding in the war with Iran. His attempt to paint Democrats as extreme socialists also failed, as voters handed victories to moderates such as Roy Cooper in North Carolina.

"That just didn't work with Cooper," said a Cooper campaign official. "Trying to tag him as some socialist liberal, that wasn't going to fly."

Trump often appeared uninterested in the midterms over the summer, the period when Republicans in Congress shifted their attention to the election.

He was preoccupied with the war with Iran overseas and his construction overhaul of Washington at home. The projects included the ballroom under construction and a helipad on the South Lawn of the White House, renovations to a local golf course, a proposed memorial arch near Arlington Cemetery and renovations to the Kennedy Center.

Events such as a UFC match at the White House on Trump's 80th birthday in June gave the impression that the president was more interested in celebrating himself than winning the midterms, several sources said. Trump also repeatedly downplayed rising gas prices and often framed the affordability issue as a Democratic hoax.

Trump shifted his full attention to the election in September at the Republican Party's midterm convention. The event was a gamble: Republicans had not held a midterm convention in decades, and it was unclear whether voters would pay attention.

Trump dominated the convention in Dallas, frustrating Republicans who told the BBC they wanted the party's midterm candidates to be the focus.

In his meandering keynote speech, Trump promised to give $5,000 (£3,700) to anyone who voted for Republicans and raised eyebrows with an endorsement of Paxton that included a lengthy criticism of the candidate's lack of charisma and physical appearance.

"Obviously, that's never helpful," Robin Armstrong, Texas' Republican National Committeeman, said of Trump's criticism of Paxton. "You're not going to stop what President Trump says. We just have to kind of live with that."

The convention failed to draw a large television audience, and Democrats quickly dismissed it as a flop. "It backfired for Republicans because nobody paid any attention to it," said Terri Burke, the Texas Democratic Party's executive director.

Trump's habit of going off-message continued on the campaign trail in the final weeks before Election Day. He made headlines for praising Ohio Republican Senator John Husted's physique, and drew criticism for calling El-Sayed a "jihadist" in the Michigan Senate race.

Mike Rogers in Michigan was among the other losing candidates - having been beaten to a Senate seat by Democrat Abdul El-Sayed

As Trump traveled across the country campaigning for Republican candidates, the White House was dealing with controversies in Washington. Katie Zacharia was removed after only five days as White House press secretary, and Kimberly Guilfoyle resigned as the US ambassador to Greece after reports emerged that she had asked a donor to pay her credit card debt.

Trump also faced backlash in October for striking a deal to buy Russian diesel. The agreement, which caught members of Congress off guard and drew criticism from some Republicans, came just weeks after Trump signed a sanctions bill intended to cut off Russian oil and gas revenue.

Democrats used the deal and other scandals surrounding the White House to argue for taking back control of Congress. In the end, the message worked, as Democrats flipped both chambers of Congress convincingly.

A second White House ally said the president's political aides remained optimistic until the final days of the election, even as it became clear the party was headed for defeat.

Now, as Republicans assess the loss, several said they were ready to look toward the 2028 election.

"Whether that's JD Vance, or Macro Rubio, or Ted Cruz, we've got a pretty big bench," said Scheffler, the state's RNC member. "It'll be a wide open race."

Peppin, the Republican strategist, said the midterm results showed 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."