Trumpism ran into a blue wall of Democratic opposition on Tuesday, resulting in resounding election losses for Republicans in New Jersey, Virginia, New York City and California. The election of Zohran Mamdani, the first Muslim, millennial and democratic socialist to lead New York City, notably drew bigoted and hysterical responses from many on the right. But their reaction to the election of moderates, like New Jersey Democrat Mikie Sherill as governor, suggests that conservatives are not ready to grapple with voter opposition to the MAGA agenda. In the wake of such decisive defeats, GOP pundits and operatives have quickly devolved into finger-pointing and recriminations, with some conservatives even turning on President Donald Trump himself.
“Republicans can’t win without ‘big daddy’? Well, guess what? Then you’re going to lose forever because he can’t run again,” Megyn Kelly said on her popular podcast on Wednesday, acknowledging the Constitution’s constraints against a third Trump term. “God save Republicans and their children in [Virginia],” she posted on X after Democrats flipped every statewide office and dozens of seats in the commonwealth’s House of Delegates.
“I honestly feel bad,” Fox News’ Sean Hannity said as the results came in Tuesday night, informing viewers that his friends “are officially depressed and scared” after Mamdani clinched the mayoralship. Lamenting his victory, former Trump spokesperson Kaleigh McEnany predicted on “Outnumbered” Wednesday that Mamdani “will fail,” to which “Fox and Friends” co-host Brian Kilmeade said, “we should all be rooting for that!” co-host Emily Compagno, slamming Mamdani as an “anti-semite,” added, “I look forward to him totally failing.”
On MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” the Anti-Defamation League’s Johnathan Greenblatt announced the organization’s unprecedented action of creating a “Mamdani Monitor” to track the policies of the city’s first Muslim mayor. “This guy’s citizenship should be checked immediately,” Steve Bannon told POLITICO after Mamdani’s win. “It ought to be addressed by the State Department, DHS and the Justice Department, to go through all this. If the guy lied on his naturalization papers, he ought to be deported out of the country immediately and put on a plane to Uganda.” The Washington Free Beacon’s headline declared “Zohran Mamdani Localizes the Intifada.” Right-wing conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer went on a X tirade, warning that an “Islamic takeover of America is in full swing.”
Shortly after the race was called on Tuesday night, Fox News carried Mamdani’s victory speech in full, and veteran anchor Bret Baier described the night as a “big loss” for Republicans. On CNN, resident Republican commentator Scott Jennings tried to spin the wave of wins as “a terrible night for national Democratic image.” His feeble attempt garnered a round of laughter from the gathered panel of pundits.
After Democrat Abigail Spanberger was declared the winner of Virginia’s gubernatorial race, Fox’s Jesse Watters similarly tried to downplay the result as a barometer of the national mood and a harbinger of the GOP’s midterm performance. “The Democrats are going to spin this: ‘This is a referendum on Trump.’ I mean, these are all blue states,” Watters argued. But his Fox News colleagues were not buying it. “Republicans did not have a good day,” Kilmeade admitted the next morning on “Outnumbered.” “It’s bad. They ran against Trump, and [they] won.” Anchor John Roberts advised Republicans not to “keep their head in the sand.”
“It’s like a funeral in here,” Rob Astorino, the senior political contributor of the right-wing cable news outlet Newsmax, noted, urging host Greg Kelly to brace himself for “the next bad news. This is going to be in California, where Prop 50 is on the ballot.” Even though Trump’s Department of Justice sent election monitors to five California counties, millions of Californians voted to pass Prop 50, which would allow temporary redistricting maps through 2030 to offset Trump’s unprecedented efforts to gerrymander more congressional districts toward the GOP. The ballot measure won by a large margin, 64% to 36%. Republicans in California have already filed a lawsuit against Prop 50, and they are represented by a law firm founded by Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general for civil rights at Trump’s Justice Department.
“We got our a**es handed to us,” Vivek Ramaswamy admitted in a video posted on X late Tuesday. A top Trump booster now running for governor in Ohio, Ramaswamy said the election results are not just a setback but a trigger for reflection. “There’s two key lessons for Republicans, listen carefully,” he said, calling affordability the top priority. “Number two, cut out the identity politics, it doesn’t suit Republicans, it’s not for us, that’s the woke left’s game, not ours. We don’t care about the color of your skin or your religion. We care about the content of your character, that’s who we are.”
In the weeks leading up to Tuesday’s elections, Republicans faced a series of events that exposed how deep the rot of racism and bigotry has grown in the GOP, including a cascade of anti-Indian hate directed at prominent Indian-American conservatives like Ramaswamy. Conservative pundit Dinesh D’Souza claimed the rhetoric had an effect on the election results. “A very loud group on the Right said, ‘Indians go home,’ and so many of them did—to the Democratic Party.”
“The Republican Party is gonna have to learn how to close the gender gap,” Fox contributor Tomi Lahren said on X, “Stop lecturing women on how they should stay home and be wives and mothers. It’s not your business.” Across the board on Tuesday, young women overwhelmingly broke in favor of Democrats, a development Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum called “frightening.”
Based on much of the right’s reaction to the election results, conservatives are first seeking scapegoats before embracing self-critique.
Fox Business host Larry Kudlow, the former director of the National Economic Council during Trump’s first term, seemed utterly perplexed as to why the president is so unpopular. “I’m not sure why this is, but those are not good numbers going into the midterms. They’re just not good numbers in general. Even though, as I said, the economy is starting to boom and the inflation rate is not that bad. It’s 3%. It’s not getting any worse.” Even before the polls had closed, Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer expressed exasperation and confusion: “What does affordability even mean?”
If the right fails to move from reflexive blame and division to adaptation and reform, it risks repeating the same mistakes in 2026. Trump, who clearly was watching Fox News’ election night coverage, appears to understand the danger — but remains obstinate about a realistic path forward. “It’s time,” the president told Senate Republicans gathered on the 36th day of the government shutdown at a White House breakfast. “We have to get the country open.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told reporters that “the election results ought to send a much needed bolt of lightning to Donald Trump that he should meet with us to end this crisis.”
The president’s calculus, however, calls for less compromise. “It’s time for Republicans to do what they have to do,” Trump said. “If you don’t terminate the filibuster you’ll be in bad shape.”
So far, Republicans aren’t budging in their opposition to changing Senate rules.
“I know where the math is on this issue in the Senate, and it’s not happening,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-N.D., said Wednesday.
Beyond serving as a much-needed shot in the arm for Democrats left deflated in defeat for the better part of the last year, Tuesday’s election results laid bare the dependency of the MAGA coalition on Donald Trump — and sets up a dogfight in 2026.
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