John Curtis

Utah Sen. John Curtis, R-Utah, is attributing Republicans’ widespread midterm losses to the fact that he believes the party has abandoned its core conservative values in an effort to win elections — a strategy he argued backfired this midterm cycle. In a candid post to his personal newsletter on Tuesday evening, Curtis reflected on the election results that, while still being counted, showed massive defeats for Republicans across the country — even in seats once deemed solidly red. Curtis suggested GOP lawmakers have become out of step with voters in recent years, arguing the party has given up its focus on limited government and fiscal responsibility to instead focus on just winning elections. “Over the last decade … our party has steadily drifted from the principles that once defined us,” he wrote. “Many shrewd political minds found it worth abandoning these principles in order to win elections—they were largely right. The populist movement brought millions of Americans into our party, many of whom felt forgotten by Washington. I welcome them. They belong in our big-tent party, and we owe them more than political promises.” Democrats flip South Carolina Senate seat While Curtis praised the last decade of the Trump populist movement focusing on expanding its party’s tent to include demographics who felt abandoned by those in Washington, D.C., he argued that the party has since failed those same voters. Curtis pointed to a “hastily planned war” that disrupted oil markets and caused surging gas prices, “headline after headline of scandals,” and a public debt that has ballooned past $40 trillion. The Utah senator also criticized Trump for siding with Russian President Vladimir Putin over Ukraine, a U.S. ally, in the ongoing foreign war. “I can’t reconcile these things with the conservative principles that brought me into public service,” he wrote. “And I don’t think we should try.” Curtis’ remarks come as Republicans face a wipeout in the midterm elections, with the party projected to lose its slim House majority and a number of Senate seats flipped to Democratic control. The Utah Republican blamed “the failures of our party as a whole” for Republican incumbents losing their races, arguing they “deserved better.” “If our response is to blame the media, the polls, or the voters, we’ll have learned absolutely nothing,” Curtis wrote. “We might start by looking in the mirror.” President Donald Trump has remained mostly quiet since election results began pouring in, with the exception of a social media post late Tuesday night after two Republican Senate seats had flipped declaring: “I wasn’t on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won in a LANDSLIDE!” Trump focused much of his midterm message urging Republican voters to “pretend I’m on the ballot.” The midterm election results are not yet finalized, although early predictions show Democrats winning the House and chiseling Republicans’ majority in the Senate. Here is Curtis’ full statement: I grew up i