DALLAS, Nov 8 (Reuters) - As Republicans faced a nationwide drubbing in Tuesday’s midterm elections, supporters streamed out of a Dallas ballroom where they’d hoped to toast a win for US Senate candidate Ken Paxton, a favorite of President Donald Trump.

In the hotel bar, Michael Little, a 59-year-old businessman and three-time Trump voter, stared at the president’s image on a television screen. “People are pissed off at Trump. Trump has cost us,” he said, capturing a sentiment rippling through the president’s Make America Great Again movement after the Republican Party’s worst electoral defeat in decades.

Across the coalition, some supporters who once viewed Trump as MAGA’s greatest asset are beginning to question whether he’s become its biggest liability.

The midterm losses amounted to more than a repudiation of Trump. They were a referendum on the political and cultural movement ​he built. A defining force in American politics that began as a campaign slogan during Trump’s 2016 presidential run now faces a potentially existential reckoning after voters disillusioned with soaring fuel prices, the Iran war and Washington corruption delivered Democrats decisive congressional majorities.

Trump’s first major response to the midterms came on Friday. Instead of changing course, he doubled down on the movement’s core. He promoted Stephen Miller, the main architect of the administration’s ‌hardline immigration crackdown, to chief of staff, replacing Susie Wiles. Wiles was seen as a stabilizing force inside an often chaotic White House. The move was celebrated by some of MAGA’s most ardent influencers, who saw it as a return to the anti-immigration agenda at the movement’s roots. “Exactly the energy we need,” right-wing influencer Benny Johnson posted on X to his 4.1 million followers. “Solid move. It’s Miller Time.”

The White House did not directly answer Reuters’ questions about why Republicans lost, the defeat of candidates who embraced Trump’s false 2020 election claims, or where MAGA goes from here. Instead, it pointed to Trump’s remarks on Wednesday, when he said, “If I were on the ballot, we would have won.” He also said it was “largely true” that the Iran war had cost Republicans because “it drove the gasoline up,” but that he’d do it again.