U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a breakfast with Republican Senators at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S. November 5, 2025.
Kevin Lamarque | Reuters
President Donald Trump conceded that the Democrats’ electoral sweep up and down the ballot across the country on Tuesday night spelled bad news for his Republican Party.
“Last night, it was, you know, not expected to be a victory, it was very Democrat areas, but I don’t think it was good for Republicans,” Trump said during a breakfast meeting with GOP senators at the White House on Wednesday morning.
“I’m not sure it was good for anybody,” Trump said. “But we had an interesting evening, and we learned a lot, and we’re going to talk about that.”
Trump added: “If you read the pollsters, the shutdown was a big factor, negative for the Republicans, and that was a big factor.”
“And they say that I wasn’t on the ballot, was the, the biggest factor,” he said.
Trump’s reference to the government shutdown, which is now the longest in U.S. history, suggests he believes that the stalemate in the Senate is a political liability for the GOP.
Recent polls show more Americans blame Trump and Republicans for the shutdown, which has caused mass furloughs of government workers and led threatened the funding for a slew of federal services.
The president’s remarks came hours after Democratic candidates Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill delivered resounding wins in their respective gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey, with both projected to notch double-digit margins of victory.
The Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani, also trounced his main opponent, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who had been endorsed by Trump.
Jay Jones, the Democrat running for Virginia attorney general, also defeated his incumbent rival, overcoming a major scandal involving texts he sent in 2022 musing about violence against a Republican political foe.
Trump’s initial reaction to the electoral results, which came as the results were still trickling in Tuesday night, was to claim that his party underperformed because he wasn’t on the ballot, and because of the shutdown.
“‘TRUMP WASN’T ON THE BALLOT, AND SHUTDOWN, WERE THE TWO REASONS THAT REPUBLICANS LOST ELECTIONS TONIGHT,’ according to Pollsters,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. He did not provide a link to those polls.
Trump, in follow-up posts, reiterated his recent demand that top Republicans move to eliminate the Senate filibuster, the rule that requires 60 votes to pass most legislation, rather than a simple majority.
Republican leaders have long opposed taking that step, known as the “nuclear option,” for fear that a future Democratic congressional majority would wield that power aggressively.
But Trump wants them to nuke the filibuster in order to quickly end the shutdown and enact more of the president’s policy agenda, including passing sweeping changes to federal voting laws.
He emphasized that view at the breakfast Wednesday morning.
“If you don’t terminate the filibuster, you’ll be in bad shape. We won’t pass any legislation,” he said.
Trump later Wednesday is set to fly to Miami, Florida, to deliver a speech about the economy.
This is developing news. Please check back for updates.
