J.D. Vance Declares ‘Don’t Blame Trump’ for Midterm Losses, Insists Party Needs Him ‘More Than Ever’

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J.D. Vance is making clear that from President Donald Trump still has his full support following some significant midterm losses for the Republican Party.

In an op-ed for The American Conservative, the Ohio senator-elect argued Trump does not deserve blame for some of his endorsed candidates underperforming, pointing to Democrats being “swamped with cash” instead:

The reason is ActBlue. ActBlue is the Democrats’ national fundraising platform, where 21 million individual donors shovel small donations into every marquee national race. ActBlue is why my opponent ran nonstop ads about how much he “agreed with Trump” during the summer. It is why John Fetterman was able to raise $75 million for his election.

Incumbents, he further argued, can put more small donations into their actual campaigns. He also admitted Democrats outperform Republicans on small donations.

Republican small dollar fundraising efforts are paltry by comparison, and Republican fundraising efforts suffer from high consultant and “list building” fees—where Republicans pay a lot to acquire small-dollar donors. This is why incumbents have such massive advantages: much of the small-dollar fundraising my own campaign did went to fundraising and list-building expenses.

As for Trump, Vance argued the Republican Party needs him more than ever. This comes just before what Trump has teased as a “big” announcement on Tuesday, which many expect to be him declaring his 2024 presidential campaign. Republicans have already been calling on Trump to delay the announcement though in the wake of midterm results and as the Trump-endorsed Herschel Walker heads into a runoff election in Georgia.

“Our party has one major asset, contra conventional wisdom, to rally these voters: President Donald Trump,” said Vance. “Now, more than ever, our party needs President Trump’s leadership to turn these voters out and suffers for his absence from the stage.”

Trump, he noted, excels at small donation fundraising and could be an asset to “Trump-aligned candidates.” Blaming the former president for election losses, he added, is “counterproductive” for Republicans who should be more focused on how to “turn out less engaged Republicans” and closing the “national money gap.”

“These are the problems we have, and rather than blaming everyone else, it’s time for party leaders to admit we have these problems and work to solve them,” he wrote.

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