Vice President Vance has offered his theory of the election: the Iran war. Be honest about that, he tells his party. (His full statement — which obviously requires its own analysis and response, but that’s not our goal here—is in the footnotes.1) It reads as a pundit’s take. You might even see it as a 2028 candidate’s take, but if that’s what it is, you’d expect more from a leader.
There is a reasonable institutional case for a vice president to dissent privately while staying loyal in public. It has an honorable tradition, and if Vance holds that position, staying mum is an act of loyalty and stewardship which is to be admired, even if you think the war was a catastrophe.
But Vance puts the war’s merits in play himself when he challenges its defenders to say what it was worth. That’s where he invites the question he leaves unanswered.
Vance’s case goes like this: Republicans didn’t lose because their voters stayed home. They showed up, and many voted for Democrats. Asked what would bring them back, they told a pollster: end the war, lower prices, put America first, change the relationship with Israel. Anyone who wants to defend the war, he writes, should argue that losing the Senate was a price worth paying.
But notice how he measures the cost: in Senate seats. A leader who steps onto the stage at a moment of maximum reflection owes the country a different calculation. The question isn’t whether the war was worth the Senate. It’s whether the war was worth it.
Why does he owe it to them? Because it’s the gravest decision an administration can make with generational consequences. Not small ball. Points for candor get subtracted when you don’t spend it on the obvious topic to be candid about.
The costs of the war have been extraordinary, and not just to household budgets. The military has burned through nearly 80 percent of its THAAD interceptors and roughly half its Patriots. Rebuilding them will take years. Gulf allies who depend on American air defense are more exposed. The prospects for containing Iran’s nuclear program may be worse than if the Geneva talks, which met less than 48 hours before the first strikes, had continued. To bring down gas prices, the administration has waived sanctions on Russian oil and struck a deal to move Russian diesel. Gas prices kept rising anyway. Ukraine asked for Patriots and was told the Middle East came first. At minimum, it is not obvious the gains from this operation have outweighed the costs.
Answering the question the Vice President raises for himself would be a political disaster either way. He’s a sitting vice president in a war that hasn’t ended. Trump has said the U.S. must “finish up” with Iran one way or another. A vice president who calls the war a mistake while troops are deployed and negotiations are live undercuts the commander in chief. Concluding it wasn’t worth it also means owning his own March defense of the operation. On the other hand, concluding it was worth it means adopting the hawks’ position he’s clearly trying to separate himself from. Staying silent on the merits is the only position that keeps both doors open, and the post is built around that silence. But he can’t keep both doors open and also play the party’s truth-teller.
Vice President Hubert Humphrey privately doubted Vietnam and spent 1968 tied to LBJ’s war. He broke with it in a Salt Lake City speech at the end of September, gained ground quickly, and ran out of calendar. The usual lesson: he waited too long. The other lesson: a vice president’s break counts only if it costs him something with the president.
Vance’s costs are hard to calculate. He quotes Trump, who told Fox Business on election night, “I think a part of it was Iran.” Then Vance writes, “The president himself said so.” That sentence does a lot of work. Trump said “a part.” Vance made it “the reason” and borrowed the president’s authority to do it. Trump also insisted the war was justified. Vance left that part out.
Vance has told us what he thinks the war cost his party. He still hasn’t said whether it was worth what it cost the country. But the question now belongs to everyone: has the war been worth it? Will it be worth continuing? Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016 by being loud about the cost of the Iraq war. The Vice President’s call to honesty encourages everyone to speak up about this one.
One of the things the data analysts on our side obsessed over was "composition"—whether the electorate looked close enough to 2024 for Republicans to win. And despite polls that showed a Democrat blowout, the data kept on telling us the same story: in some states turnout was merely OK, in other states it was downright amazing, and in no state was it catastrophic. There was a genuine sense of optimism on our team: our people were showing up.
So, I asked the smartest data guy I know, does that mean we're going to shock the world? "No," he told me. "We might do better than the polls suggest. But the data is telling us that a lot of Trump/Vance 2024 voters are pissed and planning to vote for the other guys. Our voters are turning out, but they may not vote for us."
Well, that looks prophetic now. Our voters did show up. In Florida, for example, the electorate was 9 points more Republican than Democrat, just a couple points worse than 2024. Undoubtedly there were places we could have done better on turnout. But the main problem is not turnout. The main problem is that many people who voted for Trump/Vance in 2024 voted for Democrats in 2026.
There will be a lot of infighting and arguing over what happened and why that is. One of the pollsters I really respect told me that our economic messaging wasn’t sharp enough down the stretch. I’m sure that’s true.
But the real reason we lost is obvious to almost everyone.
Another pollster—one of the smartest people I know in politics, told me yesterday we’d lose the generic ballot by 13 points. I felt negative going into Tuesday, but even I was shocked by this. In his polling, he saw that a lot of Trump 2024 voters were angry and planning to vote for Democrats. He asked those voters who had abandoned us what would cause them to come back on our team. The top four answers, accounting for nearly all of the responses were:
1) End the war
2) Focus on cost of living/inflation
3) Put America First
4) Change our relationship to Israel
Our voters showed up. And the above four reasons are why many of them voted for Democrats. This is according to a pollster who nailed the results. While many spent Monday attacking Rachel Campos Duffy for calling for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, it turns out her political advice was sound. (She’s also a great person.)
In the next few months, there's going to be a lot of gaslighting. Expect to hear any number of establishment politicians say the solution to our woes is amnesty. I'm open to the idea that we should change enforcement—by focusing more on businesses that hire illegal labor, for instance. But anyone pushing amnesty is lying to you.
The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night.
If you'd like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so. Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay. Agree or disagree, that's at least honest.
But everyone knows why we lost. And any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there.
I remain hopeful about our country. To the people who are pissed off and want to say, “I told you so”: you’re right, you did tell us so. Take that energy into electing Republicans who share your worldview. To the people who are just pissed at the results, you should be. Let’s take that anger and get back to the work of saving our country.
Vance can add this to his list: America rejects the politics of “Cruelty is the point.”
Vance supported that disgusting political ad in Ohio.