Less than a week after the Republican Party suffered its most severe electoral collapse since President Bill Clinton’s 1994 midterm defeat at the hands of Speaker Newt Gingrich’s Republican Revolution, political analysts are only beginning to piece together how President Donald Trump and his party went so badly off course.
Republicans losing control of Congress was significant. But Tuesday’s outcome went further: Democrats captured at least seven Republican-held Senate seats, giving the party its largest majority in the upper chamber in a decade. That result points to forces beyond a routine change in congressional control.
Vice President JD Vance began the search for answers Wednesday, suggesting that the Iran War had turned voters who supported the Trump-Vance ticket in 2024 into Democratic voters. Our data, however, does not support that conclusion.
Senator Ted Cruz likewise argued that “Republicans, Libertarians [and] Independents” had voted for Democrats, but he offered a different explanation. “Number one, cost of living, energy, and groceries,” he wrote, citing voter polling. “Corruption. Number two… [then] the cost of the Iran war…”
Both men captured part of the story. Neither provided the full explanation.
Cygnal, the polling firm I lead, launched its post-election midterm survey the day after the vote. Its findings offer a broader account of the forces behind the Republican Party’s historic defeat, the factors that turned a blue wave into a tsunami and the lessons both parties should take from the result.
About one in 12 people who voted for Trump in 2024 told us they did not vote Republican for Congress. That is close to the one in 10 identified in our final pre-election poll and represents roughly 4 percent of the entire electorate.
In a country where Republicans and Democrats are almost evenly matched, that shift alone was enough to change control of the House of Representatives.
Vice President JD Vance began the search for answers Wednesday, arguing that the Iran War turned Trump-Vance 2024 voters toward the Democrats, although our data does not support that claim
![Senator Ted Cruz also concluded 'Republicans, Libertarians [and] Independents' cast a ballot for Democrats but for different reasons than stated by the Vice President](https://i.dailymail.com/1s/2026/11/09/16/112400415-16278785-image-a-1_1794241711726.jpg)
Senator Ted Cruz also argued that “Republicans, Libertarians [and] Independents” voted for Democrats, though he cited different reasons from the vice president
Republican voters also explained their decisions in their own words. Broken promises, dishonesty and corruption topped the list, followed by weak candidates, the Iran war and high prices. Only about one in eight cited Trump, his family or his administration as the reason they left the party.
“They betrayed every promise,” wrote a lifelong Republican Millennial man from the Midwest. “Never voted for any Democrat ever until now. We gave them [the] president and full Congress and [they] did nothing.”
An older Republican voter put it even more plainly: “Trump said imagine me on the ballot. I did, and for the first time since 1972, I voted Democrat.”
An Independent voter offered this assessment in the Cygnal survey: “[Republicans] keep presenting worse and worse candidates. It’s like they’re actively trying to lose with [these] clowns.”
Trump’s net favorability rating among voters was an abysmal minus 25. Republicans in Congress fared no better, recording a minus 29, while Democrats in Congress were viewed less negatively, at minus 9.
When asked who bore the greatest responsibility for the Republican loss of Congress, 43 percent pointed to Trump, 21 percent cited high prices and 13 percent blamed the Iran war.
The issues Republicans had expected to drive their supporters to the polls also faded from the campaign conversation.
Only 12 percent identified immigration as their primary reason for voting. Inflation, at 20 percent, threats to democracy, at 21 percent, and political corruption, at 20 percent, were the leading concerns among midterm voters.
Gas prices and the Iran war were among the issues voters most remembered seeing in campaign advertisements. Yet just 2 percent named gas prices and 4 percent named the Iran war as their main reason for voting.
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The range of voter concerns makes it difficult to accept Vance’s argument that the Iran war explains the scale of the Republican defeat. His broader point about Republican voters abandoning their party, however, appears to be supported by the data.
One in five voters said they had seriously or somewhat considered choosing the other party’s candidate before making a final decision. There were many potential openings, but they led almost entirely in one direction: toward the Democrats.
Cross-party voting, in which supporters of one party choose the opposing party’s candidates, was effectively a one-way street this election. In our final poll, only 1 percent of Democrats said they planned to vote Republican.
Did Republican voters who crossed the aisle turn a wave into a tsunami? In part, yes. But the larger story may involve the Republicans who never made it to the polls.
In my final pre-election analysis, published by Our News Outlet less than a week before voting began, I identified a group I called the “Fatalists.” These Republican-leaning voters expected Democrats to win.
Among the Fatalists who ultimately voted, one described the result as “disappointed but not surprised.” Another said: “Predictable. You knew it was going to happen.”
Fatalists accounted for 9 percent of voters in Cygnal’s final poll, and fewer than half were highly motivated to vote. They correctly anticipated the outcome—and I suspect some helped bring it about.
Polling has an unavoidable limitation: people who stay home are, by definition, absent from surveys of voters. Even so, the size of the gap they leave behind can be measured.
In our post-election survey, 49 percent of respondents said they had voted for Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election, compared with 44 percent who said they had voted for Donald Trump. In reality, Trump won the national popular vote in 2024 by roughly 1.5 points. That 6.5-point difference reflects large numbers of Trump voters who stayed home, as well as some respondents who no longer acknowledge having voted for him in 2024.
A survey cannot determine the precise size of those two groups. My expectation, however, is that final voting data released next year will show that many Republican-leaning Americans who rarely voted but turned out for Trump in 2024 did not participate in 2026.
There is, finally, a potential bright spot for Republicans—and a warning for Democrats.
I expect final voting data released next year to show that many Republican-leaning Americans who rarely voted but turned out for Trump in 2024 stayed home in 2026
The Republican voters who defected this year were not ideological converts. The survey’s findings point consistently toward the same advice for the party’s future.
We asked voters what Republicans should do to improve their chances in future elections. The leading responses were to listen to ordinary people, cited by 21 percent; be honest and address corruption, 12 percent; reduce prices and repair the economy, 12 percent; and move away from hatred and division, 11 percent.
Nine percent said Republicans should break with Trump and MAGA, while 3 percent said they should remain aligned with them.
“Listen to the average person, and quit telling us everything is wonderful,” wrote one strongly Republican voter. “It’s not for us Seniors.” Another offered a simpler message: “When elected do what you say you’re going to do.”
A majority of voters—52 percent—want the new Congress to work with Trump, even if that requires compromise. Forty percent want Congress to serve as a check on him, and one-third of voters cannot identify the leader of the Democratic Party.
Put simply, the tsunami was not the result of a mass ideological conversion. It was a verdict delivered by Republicans who crossed over and by an as-yet-unknown number who chose not to vote. The first group can be won back: lower prices, honor commitments and nominate stronger candidates. The second will be more difficult to reach because persuasion cannot work on people who have already decided that voting is pointless.
Republicans have two years to begin rebuilding trust with voters who have just told them, in unmistakable terms, what they want.
