Pew’s Exit Polls Just Matched Trump’s Approval Crash to George Bush’s Iraq Numbers

The Iraq War cost George Bush the House in 2006.

The Iran war just cost Trump the House and Senate both.

The same poll numbers show Republicans never saw it coming.

Pew Found the Same War Fatigue Numbers Twenty Years Apart

In 2006, Pew exit polling found 56 percent of voters disapproved of the Iraq War.

Those voters backed Democrats 80 percent to 18 percent.

By Election Day, 59 percent said the war had not made America safer.

Twenty years later, Pew found 65 percent of voters disapproved of how Trump handled the war in Iran.

Only 33 percent approved.

Federalist CEO Sean Davis posted on X that the midterms were the biggest national wipeout for Republicans since 2006.

He wasn't exaggerating.

JD Vance warned Republicans about exactly this a full year before election night.

After Democrats swept Virginia, New Jersey, and the New York City mayor's race in November 2025, Vance said it was "idiotic to overreact" to a couple of blue state elections.

He also said Republicans needed to focus on the home front, because affordability was "the metric by which we'll ultimately be judged in 2026 and beyond."

Republicans fought a war in Iran for the next twelve months instead.

Independents Broke Against Republicans in 2006 and 2026 Alike

In 2006, independents split 57 percent to 39 percent for Democrats.

Thirty six percent of all voters that year said they voted specifically to punish George Bush.

An October 2026 Pew survey found 44 percent of registered voters said their congressional vote was a vote against Trump.

That's a higher share than Bush ever faced.

Confidence in Trump's foreign policy judgment fell from 53 percent after his 2024 win to 35 percent by October 2026.

His economic confidence numbers fell from 59 percent to 35 percent over the identical stretch.

Bush had Iraq and a surging insurgency he couldn't explain to voters in plain English.

Trump had Iran and a war that was supposed to be over before Labor Day.

Both parties ran the same closing argument anyway: trust us, it's almost finished.

Voters stopped buying it in 2006, and they stopped buying it again on November 3, 2026.

Del Beccaro Had the Answer Six Weeks Before Election Day

Fox News columnist Tom Del Beccaro warned in September that Republicans were repeating 2006 almost exactly.

His argument was simple: elections are about the future, and Republicans kept relitigating the past instead.

He pointed to a strong economy Republicans never sold.

Record low poverty, a manufacturing boom, and wages beating inflation should have carried the campaign by themselves.

Instead Republicans let the Iran war dominate every news cycle for months.

Del Beccaro offered three concrete fixes before voters ever reached the polls.

Cut the federal tax on home sales in half, and eliminate it entirely for sellers over 65.

Save Social Security by cutting fraud instead of touching benefits.

Write real safety standards for the AI economy before voters have to ask for them.

Republicans had the plan sitting in front of them in September.

They ran on the war instead, and November 3 is the result.

Republicans Still Haven't Offered Voters a Reason to Stay

Marc Thiessen and Bret Stephens both promised in early 2026 that Iran would fold fast.

James Carafano told Republicans in March that the war was already won.

None of them had to face voters in Kansas or Ohio.

The Republicans who did lost seats their party hadn't lost in a generation.

History didn't repeat by accident.

Congress still hasn't passed Del Beccaro's housing fix, and Social Security fraud reform never got a floor vote.

The lame duck session is the last chance to pass something Republicans can actually run on in two years.

If 2028 arrives and the war in Iran is still the headline instead of the economy Trump built before it started, Republicans will have proven they can lose the same race twice.

Sources:

• Brianna Lyman, "Republicans Learned Nothing From 2006 About Midterms and Foreign Wars," The Federalist, November 4, 2026.
• Tom Del Beccaro, "GOP Is Running 2026 Like It's 2006, Repeating George W. Bush's Iraq War Election Failure," Fox News, September 27, 2026.
• Marc A. Thiessen, "There Is No U.S. Downside to Striking the Iranian Regime," The Washington Post, January 2026.
• Helle Dale, "Midterms and Wars," The Heritage Foundation, 2026.
• Kylee Griswold, "Iran Nuked Us After All," The Federalist, November 4, 2026.
• Diana Stancy, "Vance Delivers Post-Election Reality Check, Contends GOP Must Make Life Affordable or Get Walloped in 2026," Fox News, November 5, 2025.