Trump again explains midterm losses by saying he ‘wasn't on the ballot’

President Donald Trump on Thursday said Republicans would have won in a landslide if he had been on the ballot. "I JUST WASN'T ON THE BALLOT. IF I WERE, WE WOULD HAVE WON IN A LANDSLIDE!" he claimed on Truth Social.

As of Friday morning, the Associated Press tally gave Democrats 54 Senate seats and 253 House seats, with some races still being counted.

Thursday evening's post repeats Trump's election-night assertion: "I wasn't on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!"

During the campaign, Trump claimed that his presence on the ballot delivered more votes to the GOP.

“In this election, I'm asking you to pretend I'm on the ballot,” he said in Oct. “Whenever I'm on the ballot, we get 45% more votes. So I'm not on the ballot, but pretend I am, because this is a big deal.” At a rally in Kansas on Nov. 1, Trump repeated that claim, exaggerating it further: “When I'm on the ballot, for whatever reason, we get 49.2% more people voting.”

Likewise, the president has trotted out this excuse after past midterm losses.

In a Nov. 18, 2018, Fox interview, Trump sparred with Chris Wallace over the results of those midterm elections after Wallace pressed him on Republican losses in the House. “I didn't run,” Trump said, adding that Republicans had gained seats in the Senate. “I wasn't running. My name wasn't on the ballot.”

He used a similar rationale in 2022, even though he wasn’t in the White House.

“For those many people that are being fed the fake narrative from the corrupt media that I am Angry about the Midterms, don’t believe it,” he posted on Truth Social. “I am not at all angry, did a great job (I wasn’t the one running!), and am very busy looking into the future. Remember, I am a ‘Stable Genius.’”

And after Democrats won in New York, New Jersey and Virginia in the Nov. 4, 2025, off-year elections, Trump credited unnamed "Pollsters" with this explanation: "TRUMP WASN'T ON THE BALLOT, AND SHUTDOWN, WERE THE TWO REASONS THAT REPUBLICANS LOST ELECTIONS TONIGHT."

On election night, Trump pointed to his pre-election rallies as evidence that people would turn out for him. “If I was on the ballot, they would have gotten out,” he said. “Look, they got out for the rallies. You never saw rallies that big. I mean, outside of the rallies I have when I have, you know, the general election, which is, you know, a step above, in all fairness, like maybe a few steps above — outside of that, I mean, these were the biggest rallies ever.”