Trump WAS on the Ballot. In Wake of Losses, J.D. Mighty Quick to Pat Himself on the Back. El-Sayed: Sore Winner. Dem Victories Imperil AI Boom. Don’t Stop Thinking about Tomorrow. More

President Trump got his wish—voters pretended he was on the ballot. Karl Rove writes in his political column this morning:

Both parties agreed on this tumultuous midterm election’s essential point. President Trump wanted voters to “pretend I’m on the ballot.” With his approval at 38%, Democrats happily agreed.

The results were catastrophic for Republicans. They lost almost everywhere, including places where defeat was once unimaginable.

This midterm will be remembered decades from now. Republican losses were massive and consequential….

This midterm defeat, one of the worst in a half-century, leaves the Trump presidency crippled. There’s no chance of confirming a conservative Supreme Court justice in the next two years, and maybe the next six. Republicans who have been afraid to break with the president will now do so, if only for self-preservation. The president will dodge responsibility and blame others. He’s already proclaimed on X, “I wasn’t on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE.” Not true.

Mr. Trump can’t escape blame so easily. He and his policies and candidate choices burned the Republican Party to the ground.

Miranda Devine, who has generally been more sympathetic to President Trump than the Bush-associated Rove, writes that President Trump “can’t pretend the electoral rout wasn’t a referendum on him and his smashmouth politics that needlessly alienates people.” Regrettably, so many of the President’s pet peeves are not central to the worries of the voters—think Reflectint Pool lining—as Pete Laffin makes clear in “The Bulls*** Golden Age Is Over.”

Possibly the most fascinating response to the GOP’s historic drubbing comes from Vice President J.D. Vance. The Wall Street Journal addresses this in “JD Vance’s Theory of Election Defeat.” I think “doesn’t mince words” is how we describe something this brutal:

The Vice President didn’t wait to pat himself on the back and assign blame elsewhere for the GOP’s electoral wipeout. Amid the rubble on the morning after the election, JD Vance posted a mini-essay on X.com to pin the defeat entirely on the war in Iran and suggest that ending it is a political necessity. By doing so in public, Mr. Vance signals desperation to Iran’s regime, undermining his boss at a critical moment in the war.

The selective blame is no accident. While the Vice President has become a true believer on tariffs and hard-line immigration restriction, unidentified leakers to the press throughout the Iran war have suggested he opposed it. When Mr. Vance now writes, “To the people who are pi**** off and want to say, ‘I told you so’: you’re right, you did tell us so,” he’s thinking of himself….

Nothing on Mr. Vance’s list of ways to win back Trump 2024 voters gives evidence of any self-reflection, least of all “4) Change our relationship to Israel.” That’s the message of the Jews-on-the-mind podcast ecosystem promoted by Mr. Vance and led by his friend and ally Tucker Carlson. The exit poll shows only 4% of voters rank foreign-policy issues first.

It’s highly unusual for a Vice President to break with a President in such a very public way. “Tehran Us Apart” is the New York Post front-page headline for the Veep’s putting the blame for the shellacking of his party on the Iran war.

Because of the thoroughness of the blue sweep, it would have been difficult for any Republican to win in Texas. Even popular Senator John Cornyn, defeated in the primary by the scandal-prone Trump pick, likely would have lost. But give the guy his say (“Republicans Forgot How to Win Elections“). Cornyn writes:

This year, losing candidates like Ken Paxton and Mike Collins shrank the tent, obsessing over “RINOs” and political theater. In Texas, statewide candidate Bo French poisoned the well even further with blatant bigotry against Indian-Americans, anathema to the party of Lincoln and Reagan. When nominees show contempt for voters and request a smaller Republican Party, voters oblige them.

The second forgotten lesson was even simpler: Be likeable. We are no longer in 2010, when articulate, appealing conservatives like Marco Rubio and Pat Toomey challenged “establishment” candidates over real policy differences. Today, it is fringe challengers who play down voting records and policy in favor of performative politics. A strange reverse personality test has taken root. If a candidate talks like an affable, reasonable person, he must be a sellout.

Nevertheless, on the likeability front, victorious Michigan Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed probably doesn’t score that high. In “El-Sayed Is Your Classic Sore Winner,” Matthew Hennessey writes:

Victorious Michigan Democrat Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed went all the way in the wrong direction, mocking his opponent, former Rep. Mike Rogers, for losing. “Mike, enjoy your retirement,” smirked Mr. El-Sayed, who may be one of the ostentatiously jerkiest guys ever to win high office.

And before you come at me for using the senator-elect’s full name, that’s how he introduced himself to the crowd on election night. He even put a thick dollop of Arabic accent on top as if he wants everybody to say it that way. Let the man be called what he wants to be called….

If, one day, civilization does go down, we won’t know which personal failure, which political expediency, which overlooked courtesy or which slight deception tipped the balance. We’ll simply know we had something precious once, and lost it.

Spiked on Line’s Brendan O’Neill contends that Michigan’s Senate race was identity politics at its deadliest.

There have been several reports comparing the blue tsunami we experienced Tuesday with the GOP wipeout after Watergate. The Democrats coming to Washington this time, however, are much more to the left than then. The U.K. Telegraph heralds five Democrats to watch—all progressives. Representative-elect Darializa Avila Chevalier of New York, best known for extreme statements and wiping her hands on the American flag, prepares to come to Washington at a party in a Harlem tavern:

There was little ambiguity about what the assembled crowd wanted. They wanted a transformed America: one without ICE, billionaires, private health insurance, or tuition bills. They wanted to defeat the establishment, and they believed they were well on their way.

How they will accomplish these goals is anyone’s guess. But on Tuesday night in Harlem, at least, the revolution was in high spirits.

One of the biggest potential losers in Tuesday’s elections was America’s AI boom. But there were ballot measures that passed that should gladden the hearts of the sensible. California’s millionaire’s tax failed. Apparently, even California has reservations about exiling job-creating, tax-paying billionaires. This, this, and this were written before the vote but will explain the tax.

Common sense ballot measures banning men who identify as “trans” women from women’s sports were approved in four states: Nebraska, Arizona, Washington, and Colorado.  

I want to end this morning by looking to the future. Alex Castellanos, the Republican media consultant, was on Fox’s Special Report last night. Here is part of what he said (as reported by Real Clear Politics):

We don’t have a Republican Party right now. That space was occupied by Donald Trump. Now, I think we should have one. Every nation should. And the debate now is going to be what the Republican Party stands for. Can we build on Donald Trump’s substantial accomplishments and say, here’s where we go next?

There will be no different Donald Trump tomorrow than there was yesterday. So if we’re going to create a new Republican Party, the next Republican Party is going to be up to candidates like DeSantis, Rubio, and others.

Wall Street Journal columnist Holman Jenkins also looks to the future:

I’ve been writing “Trump throws it all away—again” columns practically since the Pete Hegseth Signal chat bumble in March 2025.

With luck, this will have been our last Trump-vs.-Trump election. That means the last in which Democrats could ignore the chaos and policy insanity in their own camp because they had Donald Trump to run against….

News for these folks: The country is going to be around long after Mr. Trump is gone. His policy excursions aren’t going to be the last word on anything. America would have benefited a lot more if Mr. Trump could have left in 2029 with an above-water approval rating, communicating to the political class a simple verdict: The public doesn’t want the new socialism or racist identity politics. It wants something resembling the traditional American peace, prosperity and national strength that Mr. Trump sought to embody.

Cheer up.