‘We would have won in a landslide!’: Trump has an excuse for Republican midterm losses, and it’s that he wasn’t on the ballot
He has a theory.
Donald Trump has found an explanation for why Republicans suffered major losses in the 2026 midterm elections: his name wasn’t on the ballot. The president took to Truth Social on Tuesday night as Democratic victories began piling up, claiming that the results would have looked very different if he had been running.
“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.
Democratic candidates flipped several Republican-held Senate seats, including victories in Texas, South Carolina, Ohio, and North Carolina. The party also made gains in gubernatorial races, turning what had been a difficult election map for Democrats into a series of significant Republican defeats.
Trump wanted Republicans to campaign as if he were on the ballot
The president had spent much of the midterm campaign positioning himself as a central figure in Republican candidates’ efforts to hold onto congressional seats. He made campaign appearances in states and districts he had won in 2024, encouraged supporters to vote as if they were voting for him, and endorsed candidates in several closely watched races.
Trump has repeatedly urged voters to treat the election as though he were personally on the ballot. According to The Washington Post, he told voters to do so more than 41 times in the weeks leading up to Election Day.
However in Texas, Trump’s preferred Senate candidate, Ken Paxton, as projected, lost to Democrat James Talarico. In South Carolina, Democrat Annie Andrews defeated Trump-endorsed Republican Darline Graham in a major upset. Trump also seemed unwilling to take responsibility for the losses when speaking to reporters. In an interview with ABC News, he said he was “a little bit surprised” by the results and suggested that Republican candidates had not performed as well as expected. He also pointed to high gas prices amid the war in Iran as a factor.
Trump is already looking for someone else to blame
The president’s election-night response did not stop at his absence from the ballot. In another Truth Social post, he blamed Fox News for the Republican losses, accusing the network of repeatedly giving airtime to Democratic opposition. He also criticized Texas Gov. Greg Abbott after the Republican lost his reelection bid, claiming Abbott had abandoned his original political approach.
Meanwhile, Trump told Axios that he was “absolutely willing to accept” the election results and said he would work with Democrats. That willingness to cooperate came alongside another reminder that he could veto legislation passed by a Democratic-controlled Congress.
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