Two Takes: What Republicans Must Learn From Tuesday's Election
Two great historians — one the former chairman of the California Republican Party, the other the architect of the 1994 Republican Revolution — discuss what conservatives must learn from last night.
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by Rod D. Martin
November 5, 2025
Today is the one-year anniversary of Donald Trump’s re-election, perhaps the most stunning comeback in American history.
But you couldn’t have told it from last night’s election returns. Ouch!
I did live election commentary all night last night, so I hope you’ll forgive me for not writing a full essay of my own today (you can watch lots of my analysis if you want).
Instead, I’m presenting the spot-on thoughts of two tremendous leaders of the conservative movement, both historians: former California Republican Party Chairman Tom Del Becarro, and former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, the architect of the 1994 Republican Revolution.
Read carefully, and learn.
Up first:
Election 2025 - Republicans Need to Take Note.
by Tom Del Becarro
November 5, 2025
1: Four Blue States with Blue results. The major elections were in Blue states. If Dems had not won all those races, that would have been a major upset.
2. Republican turnout was low across the country, proof Republicans cannot count on Trump voters without Trump on the ballot. No Republican candidate has replicated Trump’s coalition to date. No Republican can simply drop his name in 2026 nor 2028. That means Republicans in 2026 and beyond will need a record of results and an agenda on which they are united, one which motivates the Trump coalition.
3. Rs need to rethink their conceit (a) that Ds are in terminable trouble and (b) that Republicans can win elections without full court press voter turnout efforts. It is easy for a victorious party to get headstrong and claim the other party is on death’s doorstep. Republicans need to remember that Trump did not get 50% of the vote in 2024. In this Divided Era, while Congressional Democrats are not popular, their voters remain loyal. The California results prove that hate-Trump politics work for them. On the other hand, Republican voters do not turn out for every election in the same manner as Democrats. This election is a swing-state warning to Republicans, especially in 2026.
4. Republicans need to work harder to ensure economic results. Republicans took far too long to pass the tax bill. Such bills and deregulation take 6-8 months to produce results for average voters. Republicans slow-walked the bill. Yes, there will be benefits in 2026 that will help with the Midterms — just not public opinion now and certainly not for Election 2025.
5. Dems will be defined by NYC’s Mamdani, LA’s Bass and Chicago’s Johnson in the Midterms. The failures-to-come of those three will be highly visible in the months to come — especially Mamdani, whose arrogance will shortly be replaced by his incompetence, near total lack of administrative experience, and opposition even from other Democrats. Democrats cannot hide from any these three top leaders or their highly visible failures. Read more from this June article of mine in Fox.
6. Democrats’ embrace of Jay Jones in VA — despite his death threat texts — and of Prop 50 in CA forever marks them as a party about power not ideals. Democrats have become the party of protests and violence. They also have embraced victory at all costs, including embracing despicable candidates such as Jay Jones in Virginia.
As for Prop 50, look at this Election Night poll:
Yet, Californians voted for Prop 50. Why? Well, not because Newsom cared about the State of California. Instead, he used California to advance his campaign for the Democrat presidential nomination.
Speaking as a Californian, if my state were 50th in opportunity, 50th in affordability, and #1 in poverty, I would personally care more about my state than about a political figure who will be gone in 3 years. But alas, Democrats disagree, as does Newsom.
Beyond that, Republicans in California need leadership and to realize once and for all that television commercials do not win elections. Get-Out-the-Vote operations are essential. Democrats never forgot this lesson. Will California Republicans ever learn it?
Up next:
Republicans Have One Big Thing to Learn About Their 2025 Wipeout
A Trump boom by July 2026 could save the GOP Congress, but economic failure means a Democrat House takeover.
by Newt Gingrich
November 5, 2025
The November 4 off-year elections were a smashing Democrat victory. This is the first and most important lesson Republicans should take from the results.
In elections in New York City, New Jersey, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Georgia and California, there was a huge wave in favor of the Democrats. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s referendum victory in California will certainly affect the 2026 midterms.
Yet, there were some local Republican victories, such as the one for Nassau County executive in New York, which provided the GOP hints of a better future — if Republicans are willing to study and learn from them.
President Trump suggested that his name not being on the ballot was a major factor in the outcome. This may be true, but it does not solve anything for Republicans. His name is not going to be on the ballot in 2026 or 2028 either. If Republicans do not learn how to connect with, motivate, and turn out more Americans, we are in for a huge Democrat comeback in the next election.
Part of the 2025 results are congruent with a principle I learned with President Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984 — and the Contract with America campaign in 1994. Wave elections carry everything with them.
The deeply flawed and vulnerable Democrat nominee for attorney general in Virginia won — despite having written about killing the Virginia Republican House Speaker and hoping his children would die. The larger Democrat wave carried him past his own despicable behavior.
Republicans would like New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani to be the future of the Democrat Party. But the outcome of the 2025 election suggests that Governors-elect Abigail Spanberger in Virginia and Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey are much more likely to lead the party. The centrists are returning. This may encourage Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro to consider running in 2028.
When you look closely, Spanberger and Sherrill have a surprising amount in common. Both have national security backgrounds (one as a CIA agent, the other as an Annapolis graduate serving in the Navy). Both are mothers (Spanberger has three children, Sherrill has four). Both campaigned as moderates and, when necessary, simply lied about the radical components of their records.
In a real sense, the Spanberger-Sherrill victories represent the re-emergence of the Obama formula. Former President Barack Obama perfected campaigning as a commonsense moderate while governing as a liberal, sometimes radical, policymaker. It made perfect sense that Obama did not endorse Mamdani. It would have weakened Obama’s image as a likable centrist.
There was another characteristic of the Democrats’ victories which Republicans historically find hard to learn: the power of message discipline. In New York, New Jersey, and Virginia, the mantra of the Democrats was affordability and the economy (the top issues concerning Americans). Republicans tried to raise social issues, such as men in girls’ sports.
Focusing in on this point, Republicans should make the economy their mission.
The fact is, the economy is theirs to lose. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act created enormous incentives for investing in America. Trump’s tariffs will ultimately tilt the scales toward American manufacturing over foreign manufacturing. And he has been personally involved in selling products and signing up trillions of dollars in capital investment.
If all this works, there should be a Trump Boom by July 2026. If that happens, the Republicans will own the economy issue, and the Republican Congress will be safe. However, if the economy is anemic or seen as underperforming in 2026, the Democrats will almost certainly win the House by a significant margin.
If Republicans study and take to heart Tuesday’s lessons, the long-term drift toward the GOP will continue. But if Republicans refuse to listen to all the American people (and not only their supporters) — and only focus on what the Democratic winners did wrong (and not what they did right) — the Trump majority could collapse.
In 1980, Reagan won a landslide election. Two years later, Republicans lost 26 House seats and seven governorships. A bad economy and some real communications mistakes (including scaring senior citizens about Social Security) led to a dramatic setback for Reagan. By 1983, former Vice President Walter Mondale was running ahead of Reagan in some polls.
However, the Reagan team methodically thought through where the American people were — and what they wanted done. By 1984, Reagan recovered and won 49 states.
In 1990, there was a weak economy. The Republican Party had been demoralized by President George H.W. Bush breaking his “Read my lips: no new taxes” pledge. The result was a disappointing off-year election. Republicans lost a Senate seat, and four GOP incumbent governors were defeated. Dissatisfaction with both parties led to two independent governors being elected. The House pickup would have been bigger since the Democrats had a 7.8% popular vote advantage, but the Democrats had a 267 to 167 majority, so it was hard for them to pick up a lot more seats.
The difference between 1982 and 1990 was that the Reagan team understood they had to change course to win in 1984. The Bush team simply could not bring themselves to confront how unhappy their base was — and how big the scale of change would have to be to win re-election. As a result, Ross Perot ran as a third-party candidate and helped end the 12-year Republican presidential ascendency.
The big question for President Trump and the Republicans is: Will they listen to the American people and learn what went wrong like Reagan? Or are they going to shrug off a bad election and stumble forward with no serious introspection like Bush?
Time will tell which course today’s GOP takes.
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Thanks. I downloaded and am looking forward to it.
Republican voters are embarrassing in off-year and mid-term elections. Maddeningly so. They like to bitch and groan and the "gubment" and "demmycrats" but when they have to fill out a ballot, they are pussies. It's pretty simple. Show up. And if you don't show up, you're as good as a socialist.