By Townhall Chicago News Staff
Vice President JD Vance said in a post on X that voter frustration over the war with Iran contributed to Republican losses in Tuesday’s elections.
The post, read on-air by a Chicago talk radio host, listed the war, the cost of living, immigration policy and Israel policy as the top reasons Republican-leaning voters gave for not supporting the party this cycle. Vance wrote that “anyone pushing amnesty is lying to you.”
President Donald Trump addressed the war’s political impact during a press event this week. “I knew the war was going to impact it,” Trump said, adding that he believes “Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon.”
A reporter asked Trump whether Vance would run for president in 2028. “Maybe he won’t run. I don’t know who’s going to run,” Trump said.
Vance’s post credited Second Lady Usha Vance’s sister-in-law, Fox News host Rachel Campos Duffy, for calling for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict. Fox News Radio correspondent Madeleine Rivera reported that Trump “admits the war became a political liability” for Republicans.
The radio host who read Vance’s post questioned why Vance’s postmortem leaned on data analysts and polling rather than policy, and said Vance’s answer “reads like a big government Republican.” Callers to the program, including one who said Vance highlighted an elderly Ohio woman living in a car, argued that tariffs and affordability, not the war, drove voters away. Those caller claims were not independently sourced beyond the broadcast.
The post did not say whether Vance intends to run in 2028. Trump did not rule out supporting a different candidate.
Specific figures cited in Vance’s post, including a claimed 13-point generic-ballot loss and comparisons to 2024 turnout, were attributed to Vance’s own data and were not confirmed against public election results.
