The party just experienced a political “earthquake” when the local election results on November 4 were revealed. The first shock was the Democratic-Party candidate Zohran Mamdani, aged 34, winning the mayoral race in New York City, defeating two heavyweight opponents: former New York governor Andrew Cuomo (running as an independent) and Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa.
In Virginia, Democratic candidate Abigail Spanberger won the governor’s race, becoming the first woman to be elected to that office in the state. She defeated the Republican candidate Winsome Earle-Sears by up to a 15-point margin.
In New Jersey the governor’s seat also went to a Democrat, Mikie Sherrill. The Republicans had high hopes here: their candidate was Jack Ciattarelli, a seasoned politician who nearly won the governorship four years earlier. Yet he lost to the Democratic candidate by a margin of about 13 points. According to analysts, these outcomes indicate a voter trend of turning away from the Republican Party—raising concerns about the policies President Donald Trump has pursued over the past year.
“One of the biggest issues: people don’t think the President has delivered on his promises,” said a White House ally. “He won on pledges to ease cost-of-living and leave more money in people’s pockets. Right now, they don’t feel it.”
There is worry that President Trump is overly focused on issues that voters don’t care about—such as legal battles, law enforcement operations in Washington, or tax-court cases at the Supreme Court—while Americans struggle with rising prices, insufficient food-stamp benefits, and the risk of losing health-care subsidies amid a government shutdown.
“The President hasn’t talked about cost of living in many months,” said a source close to the White House. “The public is under financial pressure and they want to know that the White House is aware and acting on it as a priority.”
White House spokesperson Kush Desai dismissed the criticism, insisting the Trump administration “remains focused on rolling back the inflation crisis inherited from the Biden era.” He said the President’s economic agenda has reduced inflation to 2.5 % annually—about half the average under the previous administration—while real wages have gone up and key goods like eggs and gasoline have dropped in price.
“You can rest assured the best days are still ahead,” the spokesperson emphasised.
But after this string of local election losses, Republican Party members are pointing fingers at each other, criticising their own candidates, the government shutdown, misplaced priorities of the administration, and weak economic messaging.
Some Republicans quickly noted that Virginia and New Jersey are “blue” states favouring Democrats, so their candidates were always going to face an uphill battle.
However, according to James Blair, Political Director for Trump’s 2024 campaign, the GOP’s gubernatorial candidates in those states failed to focus enough on cost-of-living issues—something that hurt them badly.
In internal emails and chat groups, some Republican officials also blamed their Virginia candidate for major mistakes and complained that donors had been too tight with funding. Speaking on Fox News, many GOP members also criticised Democratic congressional lawmakers for deliberately rejecting compromises, thereby prolonging the government shutdown to gain electoral advantage.
Blair—now Deputy Chief of Staff in the White House—said he expects President Trump to shift attention to personal financial issues ahead of next year’s mid-term elections, which will determine which party controls the House and the Senate.
“You will see the President talk a lot more about cost of living once we enter the new year,” Blair said in an interview. “He understands what’s happening and recognises, like anyone else, that it takes time to turn the economy around—but the fundamentals are ready. I think you’ll see him very, very focused on prices and cost of living.”
Former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon concurred, saying he expects President Trump not only to emphasise “cost of living” but also efforts to create jobs, ensure the ‘big beautiful deal’ is fully implemented and actually deliver on the investments that have been promised.
“Now is the time to double-down, triple-down on the President’s agenda,” Bannon said. “If we execute it, we’ll be better off. He has a populist, nationalist agenda—now it’s just time to deliver it.”
Vice President JD Vance appeared to recognise the issue when he wrote on X on November 5 that the Republican Party “needs to focus on the domestic front.”
“The President has done a lot, and delivered lower interest rates and lower inflation, but we inherited a disaster from the Biden era and Rome wasn’t built in a day,” he wrote. “We will keep working so people’s lives will be decent and affordable. That’s the metric by which we will be judged in 2026 and beyond.”
Complaints that President Trump has drifted away from the most important issues emerged not just after one difficult election night for the Republicans. Some members of the party, including Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, have been warning for months that the White House is straying from the economic populism that powered the “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) movement’s sweeping 2024 victory.
“They’re too focused on foreign policy, while people are struggling at home,” said a source close to the White House.
White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly argued that the President’s foreign-policy actions are also aimed at benefiting the U.S. economy. “Every foreign-policy move of the President is about ‘America First’,” she said. “By negotiating fairer trade deals, securing investments, and more, the President is delivering his promise to bring back manufacturing to America and strengthen the national economy.”
President Trump offered a different explanation: “My name wasn’t on the ballot and the government shutdown are the two reasons the Republicans suffered in these elections,” he wrote on social media on the evening of November 4.
Some Republicans noted that the real issue may be the quality of the candidate. “A bad candidate and a bad campaign will lead to a bad result. The Virginia governor’s race is example #1,” wrote President Trump’s campaign strategist Chris LaCivita on X.
Despite the criticism, Blair believes the Republican Party still has a chance to turn things around in next year’s mid-term elections. According to him, selecting better candidates and focusing the message more sharply will help them overcome the challenges the party currently faces.
“I believe with a large number of campaigns next year, with resources focused in the right districts and better suited candidates, we can address the problem,” he emphasised.