After Democrats up and down the ballot racked up impressive victories in the 2025 elections, a Punchbowl News analysis summarized, “If Republicans aren’t scared by what happened Tuesday night, they should be.” From the report:
One year after President Donald Trump and Republicans won the White House, Congress and every battleground state, Democrats struck back by painting Virginia and New Jersey blue Tuesday night, shifting the map leftward in county after county. ... This was a Democratic romp. ... It should send a stark message to Trump, Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune that the national tide has shifted decisively from last year’s Republican victories.
This is unambiguously true. The president sparked a public backlash; Democrats ran the table with election wins nationwide; and Republicans weren’t just left to lick their wounds, they were also left with some difficult questions about how best to navigate the road ahead.
As the results came in, the president who helped drag his party down scrambled to avoid blame.
In fact, the morning after Election Day 2025, Trump spoke to Senate Republicans at the White House and attributed the Democratic victories to the government shutdown — the same shutdown he and his party have been blaming on Democrats for the past 35 days.
The president didn’t literally say, “Please don’t blame me for the political mess I created,” but it was arguably the subtext.
For Trump, the calculus is simple: He desperately wants GOP officials to continue to follow him blindly. His scramble to avoid responsibility appears motivated by a fear that Republicans will start distancing themselves from him to save their own skins as the prevailing political winds blow at Democrats’ backs.
It seems to have led him to point fingers at the shutdown, despite overwhelming evidence that this was not the reason for Democratic wins.
But stepping back, GOP officials and candidates weighing their options should understand a simple truth: Trump’s skills may include convincing people to vote for him, but they don’t include saving his allies. Consider some recent history:
2017: Democrats had a great year, winning gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey.
2018: Democrats took back the U.S. House majority.
2019: Democrats won gubernatorial elections in Kentucky and Louisiana — not exactly reliably blue states.
2020: Joe Biden defeated Trump.
2021: Democrats had mixed results, but they defied a historical trend and won in New Jersey again.
2022: Democrats defied a historical trend again and expanded their majority in the U.S. Senate.
2023: Democrats held on to Kentucky’s gubernatorial office again.
2025: Democrats dominated in off-year elections.
Obviously, the 2024 cycle doesn’t fit this model, but therein lies the point: When Trump is literally on the ballot, Republicans tend to do well; when Trump is figuratively on the ballot, Democrats fare well.
And since the president cannot legally appear on the ballot ever again, we’re left with a GOP that has little reason to be optimistic about its near future.
I won’t pretend to know what Republicans will do next (and they probably don’t want my advice anyway), but after this week’s election results, GOP officials should probably stop pretending that Trump is a highly popular figure. He’s largely responsible for the party’s humiliating showing, and the sooner Republicans come to terms with that, the better off they’ll be.