Day: November 5, 2026

Per a source talking to Fox, the plan coming out of the morning huddle was one administration-wide story about the loss. What the public got instead was the vice president, on X, saying the war did it and that Republicans have to rethink Israel.

By afternoon Trump was calling the post “largely true,” which spares him a fight with his own deputy but confirms the deputy is now speaking for himself.

Vance has spent two years as the most loyal man in the building.

Breaking script on day one of the aftermath, aimed at the voters who feel the war betrayed them, is the behavior of someone who thinks the next election is already under way and that the West Wing talking points are no longer the ones that matter.

Source: Fox News Digital / Writer: Daniel

The Times’ county map shows the sweep wasn’t a city story.

Collin County, Ken Paxton’s home turf, so red it was called “Paxton country,” went blue by 12.

Tarrant swung 24 points. Midland and Lubbock moved left in the heart of oil country.

Thirteen rural counties flipped, twelve of them majority Hispanic, and the Rio Grande Valley that Trump won in 2024 came back by 40 points or more in Webb, Hidalgo, Starr and Cameron.

Democrats took every statewide office and the Texas House on the way.

The numbers that reset the map: Hispanics voted Democrat by 42, voters under 30 by 44, and Asian voters swung hard after some Republicans spent the cycle warning about sharia law.

Republicans redrew five districts on the assumption Latino support was permanent; Democrats won four of them.

The 2024 coalition that was supposed to make Texas safe for a generation lasted exactly one election, and the war and the price of gas are what took it apart.

Source: New York Times / Writer: Daniel

The first lady’s complaints led the president to tell aides that Stephen Miller had “gone too far,” and that was just one of the decisions the Journal traces.

Other details from inside the White House:

-Advisers warned him in the spring the Iran war could cost the midterms; he said there was “plenty of time,” and privately asked even junior staffers at photo ops whether he should change course

-Told aides polls on affordability were “fake,” and reminded them he won 2016 without commissioning any

-Said at times he “didn’t care about the midterms at all” and was tired of domestic issues he saw as smaller than foreign policy and his legacy

-Thune got off the phone six times believing he’d talked Trump out of endorsing Paxton; Trump backed him anyway, then complained about his candidacy

-Trump pushed stronger Republican candidates out of Senate races in Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Texas; Democrats won all four

-Brian Kemp turned down a Senate run after Trump called him “disloyal” at a rally

-Cabinet officials told oil executives in March the war would end by April; Trump was “shocked” to learn the military was short on munitions and cut a Russian fuel deal to get prices down

-Focus groups kept bringing up the ballroom and the arch unprompted: “It seems like he wants to put his name on everything”

Advisers warned about the war, the polls warned about prices, and focus groups kept bringing up the ballroom… but the final speech before the election was about algae in the Reflecting Pool.

For a party now facing a Democratic House and Senate, the lesson is pretty simple: next time someone says “plenty of time,” check the calendar…

Source: WSJ / Writer: Daniel