The GOP's 2026 Wipeout, America First vs. the Donors, & 5 Steps to Take the Party Back
On Tuesday, November 3, 2026, Democrats were projected to win between 255 and 258 House seats. That would be the deepest Democratic House since the early 1990s. They flipped at least seven Senate seats, and one of them was Kansas, which elected its first Democratic senator since 1932.
Those are the 2026 election results. I want to start with one voter named Bob.
Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/-ihqiZ8gYz8
Meet Bob, the Voter the GOP Lost in the 2026 Election
Bob comes from a post by @RefinedPopulist. He is a 49-year-old blue collar guy in Ohio who voted for Donald Trump three times. He put his son through Ohio State for computer science, and his son did everything right.
Then his son got laid off. That same month, the company that let him go asked the government for more H-1Bs.
So Bob is standing in Kroger, putting the ribeye back and grabbing the hamburger, while gas sits at $4.50 a gallon. He turns on the TV and hears a Republican calling young men like his son basement moochers.
What reason did the GOP give Bob and his son to vote Republican on Tuesday? I can't find one.
Why the Consultants Will Get This Wrong
The consultants will call the 2026 election a messaging problem.
They are wrong. I spent my whole career in sales, and the first rule is simple. Before you ask for the close, you find out what the customer's problem is. The party asked for Bob's vote without dealing with his wages, his grocery bill, inflation, or his son's layoff. In sales, that is how you lose a customer.
Midterms are usually rough for the party in power, and I'll grant the consultants that much. A normal midterm does not hand Democrats Kansas and Texas.
A War and a Grocery Bill
Everybody wants to dunk on the polls this week, but the polls told the truth. Voters kept naming the same things: the Iran war, gas prices, and the grocery bill.
NBC's exit poll put numbers on it. 63% of voters said the Iran war was the wrong call, and 74% said it was a major factor in their vote.
You cannot tell people their grocery bill is fake. They know what they paid. They just put the ribeye back.
Then there was Ashley Hinson. On election morning, the Republican Senate nominee in Iowa said young men playing video games in their parents' basements should not be "mooching off the federal government." On election night, she lost Iowa.
The party lectures young men about growing up while it prices them out of the things that make you grow up, which are a house and a family. You cannot tell a 26-year-old to get married, buy a house and have kids, and then back the policies that put all three out of reach.
America First Has to Show Up in How You Govern
James Fishback summed it up the night of the election: it is either America First, or Republicans never hold power again. I agree with him.
Republicans had the House, the Senate and the White House. So what happened on immigration? What happened on H-1Bs? What happened on the Epstein files? They ran on your issues, and then they governed on the donors' issues and Israel's issues.
Jeffrey Tucker landed in the same place I did. The war was the turning point.
If you work in this party and you say you are America First, it has to show up in how you actually govern. If you won't do that work, you are going to get replaced, and young voters showed that on Tuesday.
Why I Still Told You to Vote Republican
People are asking how I can tell you to vote Republican one week and explain why the GOP lost the next. I told you to vote Republican because that vote was self-defense, and I would write every word of "Vote Like It's Self-Defense" again.
I am not a GOP cheerleader, and I never have been. The Iran war was 100% a mistake, and fighting it at the behest of Israel makes it worse. I said it then, and I'm saying it now. I am America First, and the way things are going, I am starting to lean America Only.
The left told you their plan. They want to pack the Court, kill the Electoral College, and add new states with new Senate seats. Once they change the rules of the game, you cannot win it anymore.
I believed in live and let live for years as a small-l libertarian, but the left never agreed to leave you alone. We lived through the lockdowns. Look at the last six years and tell me nobody came for you.
To the zoomers: you got handed a worse country than your parents got, and you are not the bad guys.
How to Take Over the Party, in Five Steps
Jeremy Kauffman hates the Republican Party. He voted straight ticket anyway. You fight for your principles in the primary. In the general, you vote to stop the other side from changing the rules. Now the work is building a party that fights for people like Bob.
The 2026 loss left the old guard weaker. Here are the five things to do, in this order:
- Tell the truth about why they lost. America First deals with gas and grocery bills. A personality club does not.
- Take vacant precinct seats first, then county, then state. Whoever holds those seats writes the 2028 delegate rules. The party gets replaced by whoever shows up in the room.
- Use one test for the top of the ticket. Can they sell the brand to people who have never heard it? When I hired salespeople, the only question that mattered was whether the person could sell.
- Teach the same point in every rally, ad and debate, so voters already know what the party stands for when the down-ballot candidates show up.
- Win the state legislatures that draw the post-census maps. Texas, Wisconsin and North Carolina matter most, because those maps will shape the next decade.
Every one of those steps answers one question. Does this make life better for Americans here at home?
Some of you want to just run on Trump's record. We tested that in 2026. Trump told voters to vote as if he were on the ballot, and we saw the results.
Hear me walk through all five steps in the full episode: https://youtu.be/-ihqiZ8gYz8
What You Can Do This Week
Start with three things. Find your vacant precinct seat. Show up to the next county meeting. Recruit one friend. AI can map the vacancies, but you have to walk into the room.
Then I have two asks. Share this episode with somebody who checked out after Tuesday. Then text one person: "Going to the next GOP meeting. Coming?"
Right now, the party has given Bob and his son nothing, and if it does not give them a reason, someone else will. The first place to change that is your county party's next meeting, so look up the date this week and put it on your calendar.
Host
I'm Brian Nichols... and I spent years watching good ideas lose arguments they should've won.
Not because the ideas were wrong. Because nobody knew how to sell them. That's where I come in.
I come from the world of sales and marketing - helping businesses communicate better, close more deals, and actually solve real problems. Somewhere along the way, I realized those same skills translate directly to politics, policy, and culture. So that's what TBNS is.
Sales. Business. Politics. Health. Taught like a real human talks. No partisan cosplay. No debating obscure philosophy. Just practical conversations about what actually works - one episode at a time.
1,100+ episodes in. Still going.
Also: unapologetic Cowboys fan. We don't need to talk about it.
