Top Trump Advisor Admits GOP Fumbled Tuesday Elections, Must Focus On Affordability For 2026

Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair told Politico the GOP fumbled the 2025 elections because they did not talk about affordability, something Trump will be focusing on for the midterms.

Democrats won a series of high profile elections Tuesday, a year after Trump won the presidential election. Blair reacted to the results in an interview with Politico, telling the outlet that Democrats won because they focused on affordability. (RELATED: Unhappy With Election Results? Blame Women)

“Why did Zohran Mamdani do so well last night? He relentlessly focused on affordability,” Blair told Politico. “People talk about communists, they can say all these things, but the fact is he was talking about the cost of living.”

Blair also pointed to Democrats’ candidate for governor in New Jersey, Mikie Sherrill, and her focus on “pocketbook issues” like lowering power costs.

“Jack [Ciattarelli] didn’t really talk about that,” Blair told the outlet. “He talked about taxes, and he won the tax vote, but he didn’t address those key issues of affordability very effectively. He was mostly talking generically about change to Jersey. And I’m not denigrating Jack, but it was not in line necessarily with what voters were saying.”

Blair added that in Virginia, the GOP gubernatorial candidate focused too much on issues voters don’t care about.

“In Virginia, over half of Winsome Sears’ ads talked about transgender. And it’s not even the top five issues, according to voters,” Blair added.

Trump held a breakfast with Congressional Republicans Wednesday morning to discuss the results of the election and how they could end the government shutdown, which he added hurt the party in the polls.

“Last night, it was not expected to be a victory, it was very Democrat areas. But I don’t think it was good for Republicans. I don’t think it was good — I’m not sure it was good for anybody,” he said. “But we had an interesting evening, and we learned a lot and we’re going to talk about that.”

“I think, if you read the pollsters, the shutdown was a big factor. Negative for the Republicans, and that was a big factor,” Trump said, noting he was informed that his absence on the ballot was also an issue.

Trump continued to tell the Congressional leaders that he wanted to eliminate the filibuster and would focus on trying to convince them to do so.

Blair added that Trump will be focusing on the economy as the GOP now turns its eyes on the 2026 midterms.

“The president is very keyed into what’s going on, and he recognizes, like anybody, that it takes time to do an economic turnaround, but all the fundamentals are there, and I think you’ll see him be very, very focused on prices and cost of living,” Blair told the outlet.

Democrats won multiple races Tuesday.

Democratic Rep. Abigail Spangberger won Virginia’s gubernatorial election, New Jersey Rep. Mikie Sherrill defeated Republican gubernatorial candidate Jack Ciattarelli and socialist Zohran Mamdani won New York City’s mayoral race.

Democrat Jay Jones also won Virginia’s attorney general race, defeating Republican incumbent Jason Miyares. Jones’ campaign was embroiled in scandal after leaked 2022 text messages showed him advocating for violence against former Republican Virginia House Speaker Todd Gilbert and his children.