GOP Midterm Disaster Can Be Traced Back To Charlie Kirk Murder

As Republicans stumble out of bed the morning after undergoing a drubbing that confirmed their worst fears, there’s the predictable rush (for better or worse motives) to place the blame and explain the midterm defeat. Many point to the Iran war, the affordability crisis it aggravated, and the coalition members it alienated. Others blame tariffs, immigration enforcement, or Trump and the MAGA movement more broadly, arguing for a return to a pre-Trump status quo.

Less discussed is the reality that Republicans’ midterm shellacking can be traced at least as far back as the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Just before that horrific event, the GOP was still riding a celebratory post-victory wave and enthusiasm was high. Trump’s approval rating was just 5.5 points underwater at the time, down from a high of slightly more than 50 percent approval just after his inauguration, according to RealClearPolitics’ polling average. It was still higher than it had ever been at any point during his first term.

In the days leading up to Kirk’s death, Democrats and the corporate media were trying to drum up a scandal over U.S. military strikes on drug boats — but drug lords are unsympathetic characters, and Americans are not as a rule altogether opposed to blowing things up. Somewhat more threatening to Trump’s agenda, federal judges had blocked both his tariffs and his deployment of troops to calm anti-immigration law rioting in Los Angeles.

Then came Kirk’s assassination, which, unlike the setbacks above, was an unmitigated disaster. His death and the accompanying fallout shattered Trump’s (in retrospect) tenuous coalition, dismayed his supporters, and sowed the seeds of the blackpilling running amok in the GOP. Aside from a certain multidimenstionally challenged individual asserting the U.S. military was responsible for the killing, Trump avoided widespread blame. But people intuitively understand that a primary responsibility of government is to protect its citizens, and it was a blow to Trump’s “I’d take a bullet for you” aura, which had galvanized his base as he survived assassination attempts and battled Democrat lawfare campaigns.

There are good arguments that immediate responsibility to protect Kirk may have more properly been laid on the shoulders of state and local law enforcement and others (TPUSA has announced its intent to sue Utah Valley University for alleged security failures), but Kirk’s death has cast a shadow over the second Trump administration and marked off a downward spiral that may have reached electoral rock bottom last night.

In the immediate aftermath, the FBI faced a rocky start in its investigation into the murder, with the suspect running loose for more than 30 hours before turning himself in to local law enforcement. Then-FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino vowed that “there’s not going to be a stone left unturned” and promised to investigate others who may have been involved in the assassination or had prior knowledge of the attack. To date, Tyler Robinson is the only individual who has been charged in the case.

In the weeks following Kirk’s murder, the Trump administration quickly designated Antifa a domestic terrorist organization. Nine months later, the Department of Justice garnered a major victory, achieving the conviction of eight Antifa members who were then sentenced to a combined 450 years behind bars for their attack on an ICE facility.

Left-wing political violence and threats, however, have continued apace. In April 2026 a Democrat infected by corporate media narratives armed himself and rushed through a security checkpoint, allegedly in an attempt to assassinate Trump and potentially his cabinet members, who were attending the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

In May 2026, San Antonio police arrested a leftist who threatened to kill Kirk’s widow, Erika, who had withdrawn from an event with Vice President J.D. Vance due to security threats the previous month. The alleged would-be assassin wrote, “Death to Erika Kirk and every single speaker there!! America will live on without those scum on this earth. Every Christian nationalist shall perish in the bombing that will take place at every single Turning Point rally and event,” according to his arrest warrant.

Federal agents enforcing immigration law have faced constant threats (and acts) of violence, and Democrats unabashedly proclaim their approval of political violence. By fall 2025 “At least seven senior political officials in the Trump administration ha[d] relocated to housing on D.C.-area military bases … as the officials seek security from domestic harassment and foreign plots,” The Washington Stand noted, citing reporting from The Atlantic.

Prominent right-wing figures continue to live under the threat of leftists attempting to inflict physical harm, while even everyday conservatives also face risks, especially in Democrat strongholds such as college campuses and large cities. Trump, who will continue to control the Justice Department, needs to double down on his war against Antifa and other leftist organizations that engage in or foment violence. Its members should face prosecution for spraypainting on concrete and spitting on policemen, before they pick up guns and start shooting at people. Prosecuting lower offenses aggressively is the only way to avoid escalation.

Perhaps individuals like this would merit some attention:

Additionally, Congress’s lame-duck session should be exploited, not abandoned. The Senate could at very least finish confirming Trump’s list of nominees … and perhaps revive the anti-weaponization fund? Trump should bully the RINOs into doing something other than sitting around and plotting how they’re rule once he’s gone.

It’s also a good time to look at all the institutions sowing the seeds of political violence and find creative ways of pulling their funding. Schools that can’t figure out whether to punish students for propagating violence should see the spigot turned off. It wouldn’t be a new strategy for the admin; but now the time to ramp things up to max capacity.

Looking beyond the administration, it’s time for conservatives at every level to prepare for a fresh onslaught of lawfare and violence. Republicans need to assemble teams of lawyers, legal funds, security plans, and an infrastructure that can sustain the movement for an extended period out of power in the face of a physically violent opposition. It’s not enough for the GOP to simply draw people in, motivate them to vote, mentor them, teach them conservativism, and let them loose. It needs to protect them.

Joshua Monnington is an assistant editor at The Federalist. He was previously an editor at Regnery Publishing and is a graduate of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.