WP_Query with custom post type search showing all results every time

Question

It doesn’t look like you’re passing your search query in your WP_Query args. To do this on a custom search page try the following:

Replace this:

$the_query = new WP_Query('post_type=darpe-entries');

With this:

global $query_string;

$query_args = explode("&", $query_string);
$search_query = array();

foreach($query_args as $key => $string) {
    $query_split = explode("=", $string);
    $search_query[$query_split[0]] = urldecode($query_split[1]);
}

$search_query['post_type'] = 'darpe-entries'; // your custom post type

$the_query = new WP_Query($search_query);