Who is to blame for the 'Bluenami'?

The 2026 midterm elections have created the largest Democratic majority since 2008, with Republicans even losing Senate elections in their heartland states of Iowa, Kansas, Mississippi, and famously, Texas. This will go down in history as one of the greatest Republican losses in American history. This begs the question of who is to blame: is it Donald Trump, who has started wars, covered up government corruption, and sent armies of immigration agents into American cities? Or is it the Republicans, who have rolled over for Trump and shepherded through his agenda without much opposition?

Trump is an easy scapegoat for the Republican losses: he has started a war in Iran, which, at the time of writing, has a 56.6% disapproval rating; a rapidly increasing cost of living; the continued scandal of the Epstein files; and the actions of ICE across the country all contribute towards Trump’s 39.3% approval rating. Therefore, some Republicans would obviously want to distance themselves from a historically unpopular president.

However, Trump sent a message to any disobedient Republicans: toe the line or be cut off. This message was first sent in Kentucky, then Texas. Thomas Massie served as the representative for Kentucky’s 4th District and was a loyal Republican until 2025, when he voted against Trump’s ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’; he also became a fervent opponent of the cover-up of the Epstein files and the Iran war, even cosponsoring the Epstein Files Transparency Act in 2025. In 2026, Massie faced a primary challenge by Republican Ed Gallrein. Trump and the Republican establishment backed Gallrein, sinking $32 million into his campaign to defeat Massie 55%-45%.

Each candidate then followed the Trump brand of politics of lying and name-calling.

In Texas, John Cornyn was seeking re-election to his fifth Senate term. Cornyn was a far less vocal trump opponent than Massie and had served 12 years in Senate leadership. In 2026, the state’s Attorney General, Ken Paxton, opposed him. Despite being a low-quality candidate, Paxton won with Trump's backing (63.8%-36.2%). This proved that no matter how much you supported the president, he expected 100% backing, or you no longer have a future in Republican politics.

This created a serious candidate-quality problem. The Republican state congress impeached Ken Paxton on three felony charges and paid $6.6 million to whistleblowers from taxpayer funds. Trump endorsed Mike Rogers for the US Senate in Michigan. Rogers would then repeatedly invoke 9/11, purely because his opponent, Abdul El-Sayed, was Muslim. In fact, Rogers was such a terrible candidate he could not even win the Senate race in 2024 in a state that Trump carried. The decision to back several terrible candidates certainly caused Republicans' dramatic defeats on Election Day.

However, Trump only had a certain amount of control over his candidates, especially when Republicans in key races decided to run some of the dirtiest campaigns in electoral history. Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy ran a campaign that featured his opponent Amy Acton’s mother calling Acton a liar. In reality, Acton’s mother was estranged from her children because her husband sexually abused Acton when she was 12 years old, and after the stepfather had moved, she had decided to move with him. This horrific ad, and Ramaswamy’s steadfast refusal to stop running the ad, even after other statewide Republicans distanced themselves from Ramaswamy, only made the situation worse. In Texas, a series of conservative social media personalities all claimed that Paxton’s opponent James Talarico was undergoing treatment in a mental health facility in Ohio. The Paxton campaign also joined other Republicans in releasing AI campaign ads, with one showing Talarico appearing to write in a Bible with yellow crayons. At the same time, an AI Talarico says intentionally provocative, fictional quotes about Christianity.

Therefore, we can point to candidate quality and dirty campaigning as the primary reasons Republicans lost the midterms, although they likely learned this from Trump’s prior political campaigns. Campaigning on people’s names like ‘Talafreako’ and Abdul El-Sayed, unfounded accusations of lying and affiliation are all reminiscent of Trump’s treatment of ‘Crooked Hillary’, ‘Lyin’ Ted Cruz’, and ‘Sleepy Joe’. 

In conclusion, Trump is absolutely to blame for the Republican losses at the midterms. He single-handedly drove up the cost of living, started wars, made a sloppy attempt to cover up his association with Jeffrey Epstein, and had a litany of crimes, as well as picking the worst possible candidates for each race. Each candidate then followed the Trump brand of politics of lying and name-calling, causing each to lose their race by large margins. Talarico beat Paxton 55%-43%, and Acton beat Ramaswamy 52%-44%, the first time a Democrat held that Senate seat since 1961 and that gubernatorial seat since 2010.

By Jacob J. Secker

Image: Cherwell