Steve Bannon says Republicans just got a sobering look at their future without Donald Trump, and it wasn’t pretty. Following a disappointing election night for the GOP, the MAGA firebrand took to conservative airwaves to warn that the party risks political collapse if it keeps Trump at arm’s length.
Bannon joined MAGA TV host Eric Bolling on The Balance to break down Tuesday’s results, where Democrats swept key races in Virginia and scored surprise wins in several counties that Trump carried in 2024. To Bannon, the message was clear for his party, stating: “What you’re going to get tonight is you’re going to get the Republican Party without Trump,” he said. “That’s what you’re going to see tonight. And people think that you’re going to get these low-propensity, low-information voters out there without Trump. You’re kidding yourselves.”
It wasn’t just an analysis of the GOP by Bannon, it was a stern warning of what is to come. For Bannon, the results proved that the GOP can’t survive without fully embracing Trump’s populist message. On his War Room podcast and elsewhere, he’s made the same argument again and again: that the movement’s power comes from Trump’s ability to energize voters who otherwise stay home. “I think we need Trump, and we need harder Trump,” he told Bolling. “I think the best solution we’ve had in this country is every time we get to the back and Trump’s tried to modulate or people around him said you got to reach out to guys, ‘Hey, how about this?’ Suck on this. Give them Trump and MAGA Trumpism. It’s full unvarnished.”
The election results gave him plenty of ammunition as Democrats flipped control of the Virginia legislature and held strong in battleground counties across the country. Many of those same voters had backed Trump just two years earlier. Republicans, Bannon argued, were too cautious, trying to soften Trumpism to appeal to moderates instead of leaning into what actually motivates their base.
He’s not wrong about the data as exit polls showed Republican turnout lagging in working-class areas while Democrats made gains in suburbs and college towns. Some GOP strategists have been urging the party to broaden its message beyond Trump’s combative style, but for Bannon, that’s political suicide. His position is simple: water down Trumpism, and you lose the energy that wins elections.
The Republican Party is walking a tightrope, trying to keep Trump’s massive base without alienating swing voters who fled during his first term. But Tuesday’s losses have only deepened the internal divide between establishment figures who want to move on and loyalists who see Trump as the only path forward.
For Bannon and his followers, the solution is to double down. The former White House strategist is urging Republicans to run unapologetically as the MAGA party heading into the 2026 midterms. He’s betting that more Trump, not less, is the way to bring disillusioned conservatives back to the polls.
“The party without Trump,” he warned, “is a party without power.”
It’s a message that will resonate deeply inside MAGA circles and one that leaves the rest of the GOP wondering whether it can survive if Bannon is right.
