Some Republicans blamed President Trump for the party's midterm defeat on Tuesday, saying his focus on his legacy and unpopular policies cost Republicans control of Congress.
Democrats won Senate seats in deep-red states including Kansas, Texas and South Carolina, where the party had not been competitive for decades. A White House ally told the BBC that public disapproval with Trump over the Iran war, tariffs and immigration policy created a "perfect storm" in November.
Bill Miller, a top Republican lobbyist in Texas, said, "It's on him. It's not on anybody else. It's a total, complete rejection of President Trump. This is a disaster of the first magnitude."
Gregg Peppin, a Republican strategist in Minnesota, said, "Clearly, in state after state, people did not like the president's policies."
Some Republicans defended Trump. They pointed to the historical pattern in which the party holding the White House typically loses seats in midterms, and blamed weak Republican candidates in battleground states. One Republican operative said Ken Paxton, the unsuccessful Republican Senate nominee in Texas, ran "the worst Senate campaign in the country from either side of the aisle."
Trump posted on Truth Social after the results: "I wasn't on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!" He later told Fox News he was "a little bit surprised" by the results but noted that the president's party typically fared poorly in midterm elections.