Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro delivered a harsh assessment of the Republican Party’s performance in Tuesday’s midterm elections, describing the results as a sweeping defeat and arguing that President Donald Trump had become a central factor in races across the country, even though his name did not appear on the ballot.

Speaking on the All-In podcast, Shapiro said the emerging election returns suggested that Republicans were facing a much broader problem than a handful of weak candidates or unusually strong Democratic challengers.

“This not an evening to remember,” Shapiro said during the broadcast, which aired from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. Eastern time, while several major races were still awaiting final projections.

“I think that, honestly, the president said going in that the election was going to be a referendum on him, act like he’s on the ballot, and I think that, you know, the president was kind of on the ballot.”

Shapiro’s comments represented a particularly pointed assessment from a prominent conservative voice as Republicans confronted disappointing results in several states, including places where the party had enjoyed substantial electoral advantages in recent years.

Rather than attributing the losses to isolated local circumstances, Shapiro argued that the pattern of results suggested a nationwide political backlash.

He pointed to Republican difficulties in Texas, Iowa, and South Carolina as evidence that the party’s problems extended well beyond individual candidates.

Shapiro argued “if this were just the case of a few outstandingly bad Republican candidates losing, like Paxton in Texas, for example, or if it were just a matter of an outstanding Democrat candidate winning somewhere, like Josh Turek in Iowa, … but the fact that South Carolina is going, you basically have an empty suit in South Carolina losing.”

In Texas, Democrat James Talarico defeated Republican Ken Paxton in the Senate contest, becoming the first Democrat elected to represent the state in the U.S. Senate in 38 years. Democrat Gina Hinojosa also defeated Republican Governor Greg Abbott, ending 36 years of Republican control of the governor’s office.

South Carolina delivered another significant surprise, with Democrat Annie Andrews winning a Senate seat and becoming the first woman elected to represent the state in the chamber. Her victory also marked the first time in more than two decades that South Carolina voters elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate.

Shapiro also cited Florida, where Republicans retained a Senate seat but faced a considerably closer contest than he believed should have occurred in a state that has shifted toward the GOP.

“Or the fact that Florida stayed red, but very, very, very closely. I mean, that’s my home state so I know that state very well, Angie Nixon is a full-scale nutcase, and Angie Nixon is going to lose that senatorial race by about two points,” he added.

Republican Senator Ashley Moody ultimately defeated Democrat Angie Nixon, preserving the seat for the GOP despite the unexpectedly competitive race.

For Shapiro, the narrow Republican victory in Florida was nearly as revealing as the outright losses elsewhere, suggesting that even states generally considered favorable to Republicans were experiencing a significant shift in voter sentiment.

“It’s a wipeout for Republicans,” Shapiro asserted. “There’s no way to sugarcoat that. And again, if you’re looking at it across the map, that bodes pretty ill for 2028.”

Shapiro’s assessment came before the full extent of the Democratic gains was known, but subsequent results reinforced his argument that Republicans had suffered losses across multiple regions of the country.

The election also raised difficult questions for Republicans about how closely candidates should identify themselves with Trump, particularly in competitive states where voters have expressed dissatisfaction with the economy and the administration’s handling of foreign affairs.

In Florida, Moody’s victory provided Republicans with an important hold, but the final margin was far narrower than Trump’s 13-point victory in the state during the 2024 presidential election. With approximately 97 percent of the expected vote counted, Moody led Nixon by roughly three percentage points.