Iran War Hawks Face Midterm Defeat as GOP Loses Control
Neoconservatives predicted no downside to Iran War, but midterms show voters punished GOP for economic turmoil.
3 min read
In the wake of a devastating midterm election loss for the Republican Party, neoconservative pundits who once claimed the Iran War had no downside are now facing harsh reality checks. Prominent figures like Marc Thiessen and Mark Levin had confidently asserted that the conflict would not impact the political landscape, but voters clearly saw otherwise.
Thiessen’s Predictions Crumble
Before Trump launched his first strikes against Iran, Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen declared that there was no downside to the conflict. In January 2026, he claimed, “There is no downside to striking the regime. Trump has already done so twice, and each time, Iran was unable or unwilling to retaliate.”
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Despite these rosy forecasts, the GOP suffered a major defeat in the 2026 midterms, with Democrats sweeping the House and Senate. Conservative commentators and activists mocked Thiessen’s prediction, with Ryan Girdusky tweeting, “What the retard right actually looks like.”
Thiessen attempted to double down with a July column, citing a landline poll that claimed Gen Z supported a more active U.S. foreign policy. He wrote, “Young MAGA voters don’t want America to pull back from the world; they want to lead it.”
New polls show an overwhelming majority of Republicans support the President’s strike on Iran. Don’t buy the media’s lies. MAGA isn’t split on this issue at all. It’s the noisy influencers pretending to represent MAGA who have split—again. My new column: https://t.co/nAFKrn9pmZ https://t.co/XBO54YNBVT
However, the poll Thiessen cited failed to define “MAGA voter” and relied on landline phones, which are less likely to reach younger demographics. Fox News host Mark Levin and Daily Wire founder Ben Shapiro insisted the war would have no impact on the midterms, with Levin claiming it was only a “4 percent issue” for voters.
NewsNation host Batya Ungar-Sargon, who describes herself as a “MAGA lefty,” wrote, “Don’t buy the media’s lies. MAGA isn’t split on this issue at all.”
Iran wouldn’t have pulled Trump down almost at all if the whole Woke Right media ecosystem didn’t countersignal him and monetize manufactured rage at him literally the whole time. The tariffs probably would have hurt him anyway, but turning people against him over the war did it.
Despite these claims, the reality was stark. An NBC News Exit Poll found that 39 percent of voters cited the economy as their top issue, with 87 percent specifically blaming gas and diesel prices. The vast majority of voters blamed Trump for the worsening economy, with 62 percent saying he made the wrong decision in starting the war.
Neoconservatives Shift Blame
Neoconservatives and Iran War hawks attempted to deflect responsibility, with Levin stating, “The vast majority of us are utterly unaffected by that war.”
James Lindsay, a political strategist, blamed podcasters and conservatives criticizing the war for depressing Republican turnout. He wrote, “Iran wouldn’t have pulled Trump down almost at all if the whole Woke Right media ecosystem didn’t countersignal him.”
Despite these efforts, the midterms clearly showed that voters punished the GOP for the economic fallout from the Iran War. The political fallout continues to reverberate across the nation, with significant implications for the future of American foreign policy and domestic politics.
Source: Daily Caller
