The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board has poured cold water on President Donald Trump’s claims that he had nothing to do with the GOP’s crushing electoral losses this week.
After the president’s preferred candidates suffered double-digit losses in New Jersey, Virginia, and New York City, Trump argued on social media that, “TRUMP WASN’T ON THE BALLOT, AND SHUTDOWN, WERE THE TWO REASONS THAT REPUBLICANS LOST ELECTIONS TONIGHT,” according to Pollsters.”
But while Trump was not literally on the ballot, his deeply unpopular presidency drove Democratic voters to the polls and erased the GOP’s 2024 gains among key demographics, including Hispanics, Black men, and independents, the opinion editors of the Rupert Murdoch-owned Journal wrote in an op-ed.
If Trump really believes he had nothing to do with those losses, “the GOP is heading for bigger problems in 2026,” the editors wrote.
Although Democrats were polling ahead in the gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey, the Governors-Elect, Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill, won by more than predicted in opinion polls.
Despite having a popular outgoing Republican governor, Virginia experienced a blue “tsunami” that gave Democrats the governorship, plus a supermajority in the state House of Delegates.
In New Jersey, Sherill won by 13 points, whereas her predecessor, Democrat Phil Murphy, only won by three points in 2021.
“Mr. Trump has a point that the government shutdown may have hurt the GOP as the party in power, especially in Northern Virginia with its government employees,” the Journal’s editorial board wrote. “But that doesn’t explain why suburban counties in New Jersey swung so sharply to the left.”
Races in California, Mississippi, and elsewhere also showed a “rising backlash” against the president, whose approval rating is deep underwater when it comes to the economy and inflation, the editors wrote.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
The Wall Street Journal noted that inflation is stuck at 3 percent, and Trump has hurt the economy with his mercurial tariffs.
While Democrats are focused on the cost-of-living crisis, Trump “pursues polarizing distractions from his mandate, such as ordering the National Guard into cities that don’t want it and lobbying for indictments of his political opponents,” the opinion editors wrote.
Privately, some White House insiders agreed that Tuesday’s outcome was the result of Trump letting foreign affairs distract him from domestic priorities.
The commander-in-chief—who jetted off to Asia in the middle of the government shutdown—has become absorbed with tallying the number of wars and “pre-wars” he has supposedly “solved,” and has openly lobbied for the Nobel Peace Prize.
“Too much focus on foreign policy while people are hurting at home delivered exactly the results you’d expect,” a White House insider told Politico.
MAGA influencer Mike Cernovich and Breitbart’s Matthew Boyle both argued on the social media platform X that Trump’s focus on the Middle East and Ukraine turned American voters off from the GOP.
“Trump spent all year on the Middle East, his big donors loved this, the voters did not,” Cernovich wrote. Boyle implored Republicans to focus on “actually implementing America First.”
Although he has so far refused to admit it, Trump seems to have taken note.
“Affordability is our goal,” he wrote in a Truth Social post on Wednesday.
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