The morning after Democrats flipped both the House and the Senate in an historic and stunning midterm tsunami, Vice President JD Vance needed heat diverted away from his catastrophic failures (see: the memorandum of understanding with Iran) and tiredly targeted Israel, his favorite doormat, to take a significant part of the blame.
In a long post on X, Vance claimed that a purported “pollster” told him that many GOP voters voted for Democrats because their top concerns were: “end the war,” focus on the cost of living, “put America First,” and “change our relationship to Israel.” He added, “The reason we lost is the war.” CBS News reported that he wrote, “Our voters showed up.”
“Change our relationship” with Israel? Have you ever heard anyone speak that way? Have you ever seen a poll question phrased that way? If it sounds utterly ridiculous to you, that’s because it is. Reputable pollsters ask clear questions, because they are seeking clear answers. That’s not what happened here on either end.
Vance’s post gave no pollster’s name, no sample size, and no percentage for any of the four answers. Ynet noted that Vance “did not specify what changes those voters wanted in U.S.-Israel relations or provide detailed polling figures.” The NBC News exit poll lists the economy as the top issue at 39%, reports that 63% of voters said the Iran war was the wrong decision, and shows that 38% approve of the president.
That’s insidious scapegoating. There’s a difference between criticizing a foreign government and assigning blame to a nation for an American election. When a Republican defeat is explained by incomprehensibly pointing at the Jewish state, you know you’re back in Tuckerland. Vance has visited there before. In July on podcaster Joe Rogan’s show, after a Time report on a registered Israeli ad campaign, he said “there are some people within” Israel’s system who are “manipulating and trying to change American public opinion” to keep the war going.
Now compare 2024. Republicans took the White House, the Senate, and the House. NBC described it as a red wave. Those voters knew exactly where their party stood on Israel. What changed in two years is the war, prices, and a faction that endlessly told Republican voters that Israel and the “Jewish lobby” were the enemies of the United States. Tucker Carlson’s imprint put “Final Solution” beside the word “Jews” on a book cover. Vance continues to call Carlson a friend steadfastly. A February Gallup poll found that 70% of Republicans sympathize more with Israelis and 13% with Palestinians. That figure was 80% in 2024, and a 10-point slide over two years is what a sustained campaign within a party can certainly produce.
Make no mistake: Tuckerland residents wanted the GOP to lose, and to lose badly. Tucker repeatedly repudiated President Donald Trump, the administration, and the party.
Vance says “our voters did show up,” but his own Florida example says otherwise. Republicans entered Election Day with an 11-point registration advantage, but the electorate was only plus-9 Republican, which Vance concedes is worse than in 2024. By Fresh Take Florida’s count, 62.6% of registered Republicans turned out compared to 68.4% of registered Democrats. Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) said days before the election, “I don’t think the turnout is as strong as we would like to see.”
The national numbers also belie Vance’s claim. In NBC’s 2026 exit poll of more than 79,000 voters, Republicans were 32% of the electorate, down from 36% in the 2022 midterm elections and 35% in 2024. NBC’s exit poll asked this year’s voters how they voted in 2024. More of them said they voted for then-Vice President Kamala Harris (49%) over Trump (44%), even though Trump won the popular vote that year. Millions of Trump voters simply did not come back. Of the Trump voters who did turn out, only 6% backed a Democrat for the House, so very few Republicans switched sides. The loss came from Republicans who stayed home, and no poll Vance has shown ties that to Israel.
My argument is that the fringe radical Right of Carlson, Jack Posobiec, Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens, and Nick Fuentes took a party that won in 2024 and left its own voters unsure of what it stands for. Vance keeps that crowd close. He calls Carlson a friend, and weeks before the election he sat for a Posobiec interview on Air Force Two whose own description asks whether base voters will show up. Echelon Insights found Carlson at even net favorability among Republicans and Owens underwater at minus 4. When Republicans cannot tell who speaks for their party, many of them stay home.
Nothing encapsulates the GOP identity crisis caused by the fringe right more than what Vance said in a post slamming my Nov. 3 Washington Examiner op-ed and a related post. On “Fox & Friends Weekend,” Rachel Campos-Duffy asked whether Democratic Senate nominee Abdul el Sayed should disavow an ad about “killing Palestinians,” then added campaign advice for el Sayed: “Maybe they should have said foreign wars instead of Israel.” I posted the clip that Sunday night, and the post has passed 780,000 views. Two days later, the Washington Examiner ran my column on it. Vance then defended her, saying her political advice “was sound,” as if she had said something else entirely, and never named the person he was answering. If he meant me (which he did), he can use my name. I’m right here, Mr. VP.
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Much of the Democratic win came from mainstream candidates. Roy Cooper and Rep. Chris Pappas (D-NH), both backed by Democratic Majority for Israel’s PAC, helped win the Senate, along with House winners Reps. Elaine Luria (D-VA) and Janelle Stelson (D-PA). NBC found voters 25% liberal and 34% conservative, almost unchanged from 2024. Even in 2024, Democrats, including Sens. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), Jacky Rosen (D-NV) and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), won Senate races in states Harris lost. Democrats also just sent a former Columbia University encampment organizer to Congress and won Michigan’s Senate seat with a nominee whose Jewish Democratic holdouts cited antisemitism concerns, 92% of them in one survey. Islamists and socialists deserve exposure, and Vance spent his first post-election statement questioning Washington’s relationship with the Jewish state, the only liberal democracy and our staunchest friend and ally in the region. It’s time to pin him down on why he keeps doing this. The race for our next president begins now, and America may not survive a takeover by some combination of the fringe Right and the Islamist Marxists.
Vance should produce his poll or retract his claim. Either way, the voter he described, the Republican who abandoned Israel and drifted left, sounds a lot like the man who wrote the post.
Jeffrey Lax (@CUNY_Prof) is a professor of law at the City University of New York and the founder of S.A.F.E. Campus. He holds a law degree from Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law and a master’s degree from Baruch College’s Zicklin School of Business. He is a frequent legal and political commentator on Fox News, Newsmax, and other major media outlets.