Vance blames Iran war for Republican midterm rout as party eyes 2028 reset

US Vice President JD Vance has blamed the Iran war for the Republican Party's defeat in this week's midterm elections, as senior figures debate how to rebuild before the 2028 presidential race.

Results confirmed that Republicans lost control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives, including strongholds such as Texas. Hours later, Vance posted on X that the "real reason we lost is obvious to almost everyone".

"The reason we lost is the war," he wrote, noting the president had said as much the previous night. Vance said former Trump voters had switched sides over the Iran war and US ties to Israel, and told those angry at the result that they were right, urging them to channel that energy into electing Republicans who share their worldview.

The war began when the US and Israel launched strikes across Iran on February 28. Tehran then effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, which had carried roughly 25 percent of the world's seaborne oil trade, prompting a global energy crisis. Brent crude reached $120 in March and April and has traded near $115 in recent weeks. On Thursday it fell to $93.82 a barrel on expectations that Republican losses would make further US strikes less likely.

A frontrunner trying to separate himself

Vance is widely seen as the frontrunner for the 2028 nomination. Regarded as an anti-interventionist, he backed the war publicly while privately pressing for it to end, according to Axios. Last week he wrote to Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, proposing a meeting between US and Iranian officials. This week, Trump said the war would end "when I want it to".

A Vance ally close to the White House told Politico that the vice president could "modestly differentiate himself" from Trump but could not fully delink himself, noting that he remains part of an unpopular administration.

Andrew Payne of the Chatham House think tank told Al Jazeera that any Republican contender must distance themselves from the more unpopular parts of Trump's record, above all the war. That, he said, explains why Vance blamed it so clearly, though doing so is difficult while Trump remains in office and wants to act as kingmaker.

Pepper Culpepper of Oxford University's Blavatnik School of Government said the statement "puts him in a bind", describing Vance as trying to present himself as the most credible carrier of the anti-war position without antagonising the president. He said Marco Rubio faces the same challenge.

The wider field

Tuesday polling by The New York Times put Vance at 40 percent in a theoretical Republican primary, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Donald Trump Jr at 21 percent each. Rubio has not commented on the defeat.

Payne said candidates face two routes: re-energise the MAGA movement, which he expects to be hard because Trump built it through force of personality, or hold the base while winning back traditional conservative groups. He suggested Rubio would be better placed for the second.

Texas senator Ted Cruz, now the state's only statewide Republican lawmaker, called the result "a blue tsunami" and "an a** kicking", citing high food, fuel and insurance costs, tariffs and the war. The Wall Street Journal reported in September that he was testing the waters for 2028.

Florida governor Ron DeSantis called the outcome "close to an extinction-level event" for the party and warned that without Texas as an anchor Republicans would not be viable nationally. His second term ends in January, and speculation has grown about a presidential bid. No Republican has formally declared an intention to run.

Source: Al Jazeera.