WASHINGTON (AP) — Rep. Richard Hudson wanted a triumphant return to Capitol Hill this week after steering Republicans to another majority. Instead, the North Carolina Republican is facing the reality that he and dozens of colleagues will soon clear out their offices.
“It was really people coming out to send a message,” Hudson, the chair of the House GOP’s campaign arm, said in a brief interview. “They, rightly so, felt gas was too high, things were too expensive.”
“The mistake Republicans made,” he said, “is we didn’t convey to them that we cared about that and cared about them.”
Back in Washington this week for the first time since the GOP’s sweeping midterm losses, Republicans were in something of a daze. Even as they acknowledged the depth of their defeat, there was little appetite for a wholesale break from President Donald Trump.
Instead, they met behind closed doors to talk about what went wrong. And they scrutinized the calendar to figure out how to push through as much of their agenda as possible before Democrats assume control of the House and the Senate in January.
There was widespread frustration that Republicans who were awarded full control of the White House and Congress just two years earlier had lost touch with voters.
“You cut rural healthcare spending, when you abandon pro-lifers, when you abandon the poor, when you abandon the needy, when you abandon working people, you’re gonna get your butt kicked,” said Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who unsuccessfully sought to delay his party’s leadership elections in the Senate. “And you’re gonna deserve it.”
“We collectively failed,” said Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., who is trailing her Democratic challenger in a district that Republicans carried by more than 18 percentage points in 2024.
“It’s very clear,” she said. “The American people let us know we have failed in this governing experience for this Congress.”
The anger is sharp in part because of the rosy predictions from top Republicans ahead of the election. Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., who is also trailing a Democratic rival, said people kept telling her she couldn’t lose. But she knew otherwise.