Republicans search for answers after their election losses propel Democrats to power
High-profile Republicans, including Vice President JD Vance and Texas Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, have begun offering their diagnoses of why the party fell dramatically short in the 2026 midterms, largely pointing to a failure to address the cost-of-living crisis.
Ballot measures restricting transgender athletes in girls' sports pass handily in Wash., Ariz.
Voters in Washington and Arizona approved ballot measures further restricting biological boys who identify as transgender from playing in girls' sports, according to The Associated Press.
Washington will now require all students looking to participate in school sports reserved for females to provided a signed statement from their doctor verifying their biological sex. It can be based on their reproductive anatomy, their genetic makeup or their testosterone levels.
Arizona is a bit more lax, now requiring a student joining a girls' sports team to provide a birth certificate listing their sex. The state will also introduce new restrictions on locker rooms.
The ballot measures in Washington and Arizona passed with 56% and 58% support, respectively.
Former Pennsylvania senator rejects JD Vance's election postmortem as 'mistaken'
Former Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey said in a social media post late Wednesday that Vice President JD Vance's explanation for Republicans' midterm losses was incomplete without mentioning how tariffs raised costs for Americans.
Toomey, who retired from the Senate when his term ended in 2023, said Vance was "mistaken" to only blame the Iran war for the GOP rout.
"Yes, the resulting higher fuel prices contributed to the inflation that infuriated Americans who were promised lower prices by this administration. But the war is not the only cause," Toomey wrote. "Arbitrary and capricious tariffs directly raised costs for all American consumers. Lower income Americans can least afford them. Many voted for Democrats yesterday."
Long before Toomey was first elected to the Senate in 2010, he was a consistent advocate for free trade.
And for decades before Donald Trump was first elected president in 2016, most Republican politicians generally favored lowering barriers to international trade. Trump broke with that modern GOP consensus and revived the party's older, McKinley-era tradition of protectionism and high tariffs, especially in his second term.
Economic research has found that Trump's tariffs have raised costs for Americans. A Federal Reserve Bank of New York study found about 26% of the tariff increases were passed through to consumer prices, while the nonpartisan Tax Foundation estimated the tariffs amounted to an average $1,000 tax increase per U.S. household in 2025.
'It was a blue tsunami' and an 'a-- kicking': Ted Cruz
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, was blunt about how his party did in the midterms this year.
In a lengthy post on X, which was a transcription of what he said on his podcast, Cruz described the outcome as a "blue tsunami."
"It was an a-- kicking," Cruz said. "It was not simply a bad 2006 midterm election. It was a Watergate-level repudiation."
Cruz himself was once nearly ousted in 2018, when Democrat Beto O'Rourke lost to him by just two percentage points. Eight years later, Cruz will become the lone GOP senator in Texas after James Talarico handily defeated Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
Cruz said he knew the GOP wipeout in Texas, which saw all statewide offices go to Democrats, was very much possible.
"I am very, very sorry that it came to pass. Texas has not had a Democrat governor since 1994. We haven’t had a Democrat senator since 1993. Now we’ll have both," Cruz said.
Cruz, like others in his party, chalked up the devastating losses to Republican politicians not seeming to understand or care about the cost of living crisis Americans have been dealing with.
"Food is too high, gas is too high, diesel is too high, insurance is too high, life is too high," Cruz said. "Tariffs have made everything too expensive, and the Iran war has dragged on too long. It should have been brief, decisive, and over. It needs to end."
Cruz also referenced wealth inequality as a frustration for voters, referencing Elon Musk's brief trillionaire status.
"There’s a very real economic disconnect. Our K-shaped economy is a yawning divide. Last year, we saw the world’s very first trillionaire, a modern-day Thomas Edison, at the very same time that millions were struggling to feed their families," he said.
"Understandably, people were pissed off, and elected Republicans didn’t do enough to address their very real pain," he added.
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