What the Voters Rejected

Last week's elections were a rout for Republicans. The party lost the House and the Senate, gave up governorships in states it had held for years, and lost ground in places that voted for Donald Trump by wide margins two years ago. Democrats will control both chambers of Congress in January.

The result is easy to read as a verdict on nationalism, but the exit polls point elsewhere. Voters' answers show no rejection of the idea of putting America first. They rejected a government that promised to put America first and then governed differently.

Opposition to the Iran war

Sixty-three percent of voters told the NBC News exit poll that the United States made the wrong decision in taking military action against Iran. CBS News found a majority saying the same, including about a quarter of Republicans. Voters had been promised an end to foreign entanglements and instead got a new war far from the Western Hemisphere, with no American interest at stake, paid for in American lives and higher gas prices.

The Venezuela operation offers a useful comparison. Removing Maduro was American power used for American ends close to home, and it succeeded. The war in Iran has imposed costs on Americans without securing any comparable gain for the United States.

The economy and prices

In the NBC News exit poll, three in four voters said the economy is in rough shape. Sixty-five percent said the president's policies have made it worse, and 62 percent said he is responsible for high prices. Nearly nine in 10 said they are concerned about the cost of groceries, gas and utilities. In the NBC News poll, voters were more than twice as likely to say their finances are worse than two years ago as to say they are better, by 44 percent to 18 percent.

Tariffs contributed to that discontent, and nationalists should be candid about why. Protection works when it is steady and strategic and comes with a plan to build, combining lasting duties on the industries that matter with public investment that brings plants home. Voters instead saw tariffs announced and withdrawn, exemptions granted deal by deal and no plan to build. Tariffs imposed without that investment raise prices for families without producing the factories that would justify the cost.

Concern about corruption

In the NBC News exit poll, 90 percent of voters said government corruption was a crucial or major factor in their vote, about the same share who said so of the cost of living. Six in 10 told CBS News they believe the president puts his own interests ahead of the country's. The record behind that judgment includes a presidential memecoin, a family cryptocurrency venture, a jet accepted from a foreign government and pardons for political allies.

Heavy spending by wealthy donors did not change the outcome. CNBC found that tech billionaires and allied interests spent hundreds of millions of dollars backing Republican candidates, including more than $200 million in a single Texas Senate race, and lost. Seventy-six percent of voters told NBC News they would oppose a data center being built in their community.

What the result did not endorse

Voters did not hand Democrats a mandate. Asked in the NBC News exit poll which party would do a better job fighting corruption, 37 percent said Democrats, 31 percent said Republicans and roughly a third said neither, which leaves the issue open to whichever party takes it seriously.

Nor was the election a vote for an open border. In the NBC News poll, 57 percent of voters said immigration enforcement has gone too far, and that finding deserves attention. A secure border remains the goal, and enforcement must be lawful, competent and aimed at the right people if it is to keep public support.

What nationalists should do

• End wars fought for other countries' aims. The test is American interest, and the Iran war fails it.
• Pair steady tariffs on strategic industries with a plan to build.
• Keep public office clean, with no family business with foreign governments, no foreign gifts, no pardons for friends, and a ban on stock trading in Congress and the Cabinet.
• Run the economy for the people who do the work, starting with prices, wages, housing and power bills.

The Society was founded to hold leaders who campaign on America First to that standard once in office, and it will apply these tests to candidates of both parties in 2028.