GOP Blames Iran MOU for Midterm Losses, Officials Disagree
GOP officials claim Iran peace deal caused midterm losses, but some officials argue the war itself was the real issue.
3 min read
Democrats seized control of both chambers of Congress in the 2026 midterms, flipping the Senate and House just two years after President Donald Trump’s decisive presidential victory. Exit polls suggest the Iran war and its economic fallout were key factors in voters’ decisions, but some within the GOP have attempted to shift blame to the administration’s memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Iran.
One longtime administration official told the Daily Caller that these claims are misguided, accusing them of being part of a broader effort to scapegoat the peace deal. The official said, “Warmongering establishment ghouls are the only people disturbed by the thought of peace in the Middle East. It is a fact that the American people supported the MOU.” They added, “Anyone saying otherwise is carrying water for the Neocon establishment that got us into this mess in the first place.”
Vice President JD Vance, alongside Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, negotiated an MOU with leaders from both the United States and Iran, which they signed in June. Although the agreement eventually fell through, some voices on the right claimed Americans soured on the war only after a peace deal was attempted.
“Two Senators tell me the Vice President is right that the GOP turned against the Iran war in the Senate GOP’s own polling,” Erick Erickson said in a post on X. “But they say what the VP leaves out is that the turn came after the VP negotiated a bad deal with the Iranian regime that repulsed the GOP.”
Dana Loesch argued in a similar post: “The failure wasn’t responding to Iran. The failure was refusing to follow through, believing that a murderous mullah regime wants peace, and participating in MOU theater.”
It’s simply not true that Americans’ problem with the war was the MOU. https://t.co/KorlvxPc1M
“It wasn’t the Iran war that was the problem on election day,” Thiessen said on Fox News. “It was the Iran MOU.”
Trump’s approval rating has steadily declined since the war, and he himself admitted the negative economic effects were part of the problem. The economic consequences of Trump’s joint war with Israel against Iran almost immediately began to tank his approval rating. In contrast, the period when the MOU was being negotiated briefly improved Trump’s approval rating on gas prices and the economy.
A Raymond James study found that Trump’s approval rating was actually correlated to gas prices, not the MOU. Vance recognized this after the midterm cycle, saying the real reason Republicans lost “is obvious to almost everyone.”
“The reason we lost is the war,” Vance said. “The president himself said so last night.”
The president reiterated this point when he was asked about Vance’s remarks Wednesday afternoon, the day after election night. “I think it’s largely true because it drove the gas prices up a little bit short term,” Trump said of Vance’s statement. “But at the same time, if I had to do it again, I’d have to do it again.”
Source: Daily Caller
