‘Don’t rest on your laurels’: Vance lists reasons why Republicans must ‘take nothing for granted’ in 2026

Vice President JD Vance said Wednesday on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle” that Republicans should “take nothing for granted” when it comes to the upcoming midterm elections in 2026 due to “headwinds from the media” as well as Democrats still “trying to register illegal aliens.”

Despite new reports detailing Democrats’ drop in voter registrations and the party’s approval ratings plummeting to near-historic lows, Democrats have touted confidence for the upcoming midterms. Discussing a new report from The New York Times about Democrats shedding over 2 million registered voters between the 2020 and 2024 elections, Fox’s Laura Ingraham asked Vance if Republicans could “gain some ground” in 2026.

“I think we have a good chance, but take nothing for granted, Laura. The Democrats are still trying to register illegal aliens. They still explicitly say that they want illegal aliens to vote in federal elections,” Vance said. “We still have, I think, a lot of headwinds from the media. They never tell the truth about what we’re doing, about what the president has accomplished for the American people.”

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“So don’t rest on our laurels. Keep on achieving victories for the American people and keep on trying to win. That’s our path to being able to continue to govern this country,” Vance added. “I’m not, look, I’m not going to bank anything in 2026. We just have to keep working at it.”

According to the NYT report released Wednesday, between the 2020 and 2024 elections, Democrats lost an estimated 2.1 million voters across 30 states, alongside Washington, D.C. In comparison, Republicans added 2.4 million registered voters and gained more new voters than Democrats between 2024 and 2025.

While some Democrat lawmakers have expressed confidence in flipping the House in the midterm elections, a slew of recent polls show the party’s favorability has dropped significantly. According to a CNN poll conducted in March, the party hit only a 29% favorability rating, dropping a staggering 20 points since January 2021.

With Republicans concerned about election integrity, questions regarding illegal immigrants and their voting abilities have been raised. During the Biden administration, over 7 million illegal immigrants made their way into the U.S., with the second Trump administration cracking down and conducting mass deportations.

In July, a previously recorded 2021 video of Democrat New York Rep. Yvette Clarke resurfaced, in which she admitted she was eager for immigrants to enter the U.S. to aid Democrats with redistricting.

“We have a diaspora that, that can absorb a significant number of these migrants and that, you know, when I hear colleagues talk about, you know, the, the, the doors of the inn being closed [and] no room in the inn, I, I’m saying, you know, I need more people in my district just for redistricting purposes,” Clarke said during a 2021 House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing.

Redistricting has recently been in the media spotlight after Texas introduced new congressional maps in July, prompting heavy pushback from Democrats. While state officials cited the need for new maps due to an influx of voters since 2020, California Gov. Gavin Newsom launched his own gerrymandering campaign in response.