In the White House, the main reason for the Republican Party's defeat in the US midterm congressional elections has been publicly stated for the first time. According to RBC-Ukraine, citing statements by President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance published on their official X accounts, both figures linked the loss to the military conflict against Iran and its consequences for fuel prices.
"Largely True": Trump's Admission
Answering questions about Vance's statement, Trump acknowledged that the war against Iran "largely" cost Republicans election losses. "I think that's largely true, because it did lead to a short-term spike in gasoline prices," the president said. At the same time, he emphasized that he would repeat the military operation, calling it "the only solution in the long term" and adding: "You cannot allow Iran to have nuclear weapons."
Vance's Four Reasons
Earlier, Vice President JD Vance listed four reasons why, in his view, Republicans lost the midterm elections. At the top of the list, he placed the war against Iran, while also pointing to voter dissatisfaction with the economic situation and the nature of Washington's relations with Israel. "The reason for our defeat is the war. The president himself stated this last night," Vance said.
Shifting Narrative: From Refinery Strikes to Middle East War
Notably, the administration's position on the causes of rising fuel prices changed throughout the fall. In early October, Trump claimed that the rise in diesel prices was caused by Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries rather than his military campaign in the Middle East, stating that without these strikes the US would not have diesel problems. He also repeatedly called the resumption of Ukrainian strikes on Russian infrastructure a "disgrace" and an "outrage," citing what he described as a developing global diesel shortage. After the election defeat, the emphasis shifted: now, according to Trump and Vance, the Iranian conflict has become the key factor.
The Fuel Factor Against the Senate Race Background
The issue of fuel prices became one of the central motifs of the election campaign. Thus, in Kansas, traditionally considered a Republican stronghold, two weeks before the midterms, Trump announced at a rally in Wichita the launch of the Harvest Fuel Relief program—an $8 billion fund to compensate farmers for diesel fuel costs during the harvest season, NHK reports. Democrats, in turn, accused the president of trying to mobilize voters with promises of state subsidies. Against the backdrop of these statements, the White House admission that the Iranian conflict made gasoline more expensive and undermined the party's position looks like a rare public revision of cause-and-effect relationships.
Thus, an official version has formed in the US administration: the short-term rise in gasoline prices caused by the war against Iran became the main factor in the Republicans' defeat in the midterms. At the same time, Trump maintains his course of pursuing a tough policy toward Iran, while the question of how much the fuel factor, rather than economic discontent or the position on Israel, determined the election outcome remains a subject of internal party assessments.
