The 2026 Republican Blame Game Gone Wild

The Republican Party lost last night. Not just a faction. Not just the MAGA portion, the party as a whole — Republicans of every type.

Bad candidates lost. Good candidates lost. Candidates who tried to nationalize their election lost. Candidates who tried to localize their election lost. Candidates who needed national money lost. Candidates who self-funded lost. People who supported the Iran War lost. People who publicly broke with the president on it lost. Long-serving incumbents lost. Brand new outsiders lost.

Republicans lost like it was their job. As it turns out, despite evidence of their broad incompetence, they are very good at that job.

One of the more underappreciated and dangerous aspects of the Trump era influx of new blood in the post-2016 era is the decrease in the number of people who have ever endured losing — really losing — on anything approaching this scale. Such levels of defeat, deeply familiar for people with more than a decade of political memory, became inconceivable for some Republicans.

The John Boehners of the world were around long enough to remember the times before the 1994 Revolution. The Paul Ryans of the world remembered the 2006 buzzsaw. But the soon-to-be former Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, was first elected in 2016. They don’t know a world of a Republican Party without Donald Trump at its head. They certainly don’t know what the wilderness really looks like.

How many Texas Republicans remember a time when Democrats ran the state?

The fun part is that because every Republican of every type lost, every faction will blame everyone else. The knives are out, sharpened, and thirsty for blood. And because you can obviously make the case against every faction and their precious priorities — the Iran War, the AWOL Senate, the overconfident MAGA bro political team, zombie neocons, the overreliance on Elon, AI confusion, the total lack of an affordability agenda beyond telling people to eat chicken and screwing over farmers to import Argentinian beef, Vivek Ramaswamy’s existence as a person — everyone will argue with the assured superiority complex that tells them they’re right.

There are differences from 2006, despite the obvious comparison of midterm + unpopular war + people tired of corruption. That election didn’t sneak up on Republicans — they knew they were headed for a loss. This time around, it clearly did sneak up on many of them. The idea that polling misses would automatically undercount GOP voters animated so much of the coverage in the closing days that people convinced themselves it wouldn’t be that bad. How can a Republican lose statewide in Texas? It turns out they can.

The nature of those losses is going to be a major focus for 2028. It’s early in the analysis period, but what stands out to me about the voter movement nationally is that Republicans saw much worse losses among millennials, Gen Z, and suburban voters than among Latinos. Perhaps this is an indication that the people most ticked off about ICE and immigration enforcement are the suburban “allies” rather than Hispanic voters, or that the faction of younger men assumed to be the most loyal part of the MAGA coalition is a weaker portion than some assumed. Figuring that out is essential to having any shot at the presidency in 2028 — there is, obviously, no path for Republicans without Texas.

Latinos are actually better than they were in 2020 even on this horrendous night for the GOP, suggesting many of these gains may be durable.

But millennials, Gen Z and the suburbs are worse.

— Patrick Ruffini (@PatrickRuffini) November 4, 2026

For now, the thing that should scare Republicans the most is the very real possibility that Democrats could, after 2028, end up in the same position they had 20 years earlier. That led to a 60-vote majority and Obamacare. We don’t have to imagine what this new, more radical party would do this time around – they tell us every day.

By the way, whatever happened to that idea Democrats and the media kept talking up about Trump canceling the midterms? Why didn’t he just do that?

In the meantime, welcome to day one of the battle for the Republican presidential nomination.

Oh, to be a fly on the wall at The Ned.

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