Indiana Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith says Republicans have some soul-searching to do after Democrats made major gains across the country and in Indiana during Tuesday’s midterm elections.

Beckwith said he expected Republicans to lose some ground but was surprised by the size of the Democratic wave.

“Well, I don’t know if I expected it to be as big of a smackback to the Republicans,” Beckwith said.

He said conversations with voters and local officials revealed growing frustration with Republican leadership at every level.

“Republicans are very upset with Republican leaders. That’s true of local officials, their state officials, and their federal officials,” he said.

Beckwith said Republicans need to return to the principles that helped them win elections in the first place.

“We have got to get back to Republican principles, to tax less, to curb government growth, to spend less, and to defend social conservative values,” he said. “And really, quite frankly, we don’t do that very well in Indiana, and we don’t really do that very well federally at all.”

He said Republicans have grown too comfortable with power.

“We’ve had it for too long. We’ve gotten lazy, and we’ve gotten complacent,” Beckwith said. “And so it’s good that we’re going to actually have to get out there and actually work to accomplish the good things that make Indiana a great place to begin with.”

The election also brings a leadership change at the Indiana Statehouse. House Speaker Todd Huston lost his Hamilton County seat to Democrat Lauren Cole. State Rep. Ben Smaltz, R-Auburn, will take over as the next House speaker.

Beckwith also pointed to Democrat Abdul El-Sayed’s victory over Republican Mike Rogers in Michigan’s U.S. Senate race. He criticized El-Sayed’s politics and his use of Arabic during his victory speech.

“He gave his acceptance speech in Arabic, for crying out loud,” Beckwith said. “He was speaking to the Muslim Brotherhood when he did that, when he went into Arabic.”

Beckwith provided no evidence for that allegation. He also blamed what he called radical political ideologies in schools for helping fuel the country’s political divide.

“Our kids have been growing up in radical communist ideologies in the classrooms, and so they’re coming out as useful idiots, and they are tearing down the traditions and the walls that protect us exactly from the radical ideas of Abdul El-Sayed,” he said.

Despite the Republican losses, Beckwith remains optimistic about the party’s political future. He believes voters will begin seeing the economic benefits of President Donald Trump’s policies over the next two years.

“The last two years of Trump, you’re going to see really good things economically happen, and it will be because of the stuff we’ve done in the first two years,” Beckwith said