The GOP picks through its ashes, but hope remains

America is a two-party system. There are much worse options than the GOP.

Nov 10, 2026

I believe the 2026 election can be largely explained by a single figure: six percent. Six percent fewer white evangelical voters participated in this election than had participated in the previous five elections. From 2016 through 2024, white evangelicals reliably made up 23 to 28 percent of total voters. That’s not a shadow statistic behind some giant rise in other voters (though non-white Christian and non-Christian voter shares were significant and those voters were highly motivated). Nearly six million white evangelical voters stayed home in 2026 who voted in the 2022 midterm. And 2022’s number was less than 2018 during President Trump’s first term.

Among white evangelicals, support for the GOP remains high, consistently about 82 percent. This means that white evangelicals did not defect from their party. They simply voted with their feet firmly planted on their recliners. And that means the 18 percent of evangelicals who did voter probably split their tickets versus holding their noses for the MAGA candidate. While some pundits hypothesize that the lack of Trump being on the ballot is responsible for the collapse, I say the opposite. Trump told his crew to vote as if he were on the ballot. In 2020, white evangelicals in Georgia stayed home, handing what should have been an easy runoff for Republicans to two Democrats who still serve in the Senate. They listened to their man, and in 2026, they did not listen.

The results, as we all know, are stunning: Georgia is all blue, Texas is all blue, and even Kansas, for the first time in over 90 years, has a Democrat governor-elect.

Trump’s adviser—now White House chief of staff—Stephen Miller’s strategy was always to play the white evangelical card. He probably thinks the administration didn’t come down hard enough to motivate them to the polls, though his boss admitted on “60 Minutes” it’s likely the opposite.

Confusion reigns. Some pundits and politicians are resorting to the old “stolen election” blame game. President Trump is happy to throw them red meat, but he doesn’t believe it himself, at least in my opinion. There will be no lawsuits, no efforts to overturn results, no phone calls to state election officials to “find me 12,000 votes.” Only a few speech references to help the true conspiracy talkers keep talking (and likely taking Russian influence money).

If the election was stolen, it was heisted by white evangelicals, whose dissatisfaction with the facts on the ground: economic, military, social, that they signaled the way shoppers signal to their favorite store (or beer brand—sorry, Baptists) their dissatisfaction. They simply did not buy what was being sold.

But there is hope.

The seal of the City of Atlanta is a phoenix, the mythical fire bird rising from its own ashes. The city’s motto is “resurgens,” meaning “rising again.” The South shall rise again, and it indeed has, but not red, now blue, like the South was for much of its post Civil War history. Republicans were anti-slavery, and Democrats were the party of the antebellum order. Now Democrats are the party of the post-Trump order, or some say the post-Christian order, but I don’t believe that. James Talarico didn’t win in Texas because he is anti-Christian—he won because he is a Christian, though not a typical white evangelical.

White evangelicals have not retreated into the shadows to nurse grievances. That’s what the political pundits who make their living nursing grievances want everyone to think. If the economy was better, and we weren’t in a stupid war (stupid meaning one we won’t win), I think more white evangelicals would have voted, and states like Georgia and Texas might have remained red. However, in the primaries, the 18 percent of white evangelicals who reject MAGA were not enough to prevent the MAGA candidates from being nominated.

The hope is simple. America has a two-party system. One party is the Democrats. The other party is the Republicans. If the Republicans are finished, whoever will kill them off as a political force has not yet stood to their feet. It could happen, but it has not happened. It’s more likely that whoever will rise will be Republican, but a different kind of Republican.

There are much worse outcomes in our two-party system than a revived Republican Party. If the parties truly realigned and fragmented, you might end up with the post-liberals versus the classical liberals. There are post-liberals in both parties: the Democratic Socialists of America, a wart on the Democrats’ behind, are illiberal. Many MAGA supporters (like Stephen Miller) are illiberal. These factions have more in common than what separates them. They simply differ on the basis of who they pander to. White Heritage Power versus White Colonialist Power is not a useful distinction. They both also have an irrational and outsize view of Israel’s (and Jewish) influence on the world, leading to all kinds of conspiracies, and outright hatred.

I’d rather have a rump GOP rising from its own ashes than a bunch of rabid antisemites running as post-liberal national socialists. I think most evangelical voters like me would certainly agree.

My hope is like Rep. Thomas Massie’s effort to force a vote on removing Pete Hegseth from his position running our military. Nobody in Trump’s administration deserves to be impeached more than Hegseth. Doing it before the new Congress takes their oath would be a strong signal that the GOP’s spark, though small, has not completely vanished. Outgoing politicians like Chris Sununu and Brian Kemp still retain influence and respect. They are also not insane, rabid MAGA supporters.

The new GOP will not come down to Trump versus Never Trump. Trump is now officially a lame duck, and the lamer the better. The party is in the hands of the nearly six million white evangelical voters who sat out 2026, plus the other 18 percent who voted, and either went fully blue or (mostly) split their tickets. There is hope, but first there’s a lot of ashes to sift.

I hope the GOP wakes up and heeds Massie’s call, though I think the ashes will win this time. At some point, either the phoenix will rise (it must), or it will take another form. There are much worse forms it could take. I would choose to keep it the Grand Old Party rising from the ashes.

Discussion about this post

Ready for more?