There was no "red wave."
It was an historic night, and this morning, and for the next few days if not weeks, the entrails of the 2022 mid-term elections will be examined. But this morning, this seems to be the consensus:
An election that Republicans hyped as a red wave is turning out to be anything but, with Democrats over-performing the expectations of many in House and Senate races.
The results are not final and control of both the House and Senate remain up for grabs, despite Democrats going into the election with wafer-thin majorities. Expectations of widespread GOP gains have not been realized, even though the party retains a chance at winning the Senate, and a plausible shot at the House.
The linked analysis makes the points that:
There was no Biden backlash;
The red-to-blue suburbs stayed blue;
Inflation wasn't as big a factor as Republicans hoped;
The abortion issue was potent; and
Gun control is a winner for Dems.
We would also add that democracy was on the ballot, and it seemed to be decisive in swinging elections away from Trumpist election deniers across the country. With that, and with the defeat of high- profile Malignant Loser- endorsed candidates, voters decided that, even with the strong economic headwinds faced by Democrats, they wanted to affirm that democracy matters, that elections should be respected, and political violence needed to stop.
And the Republican- wired, closed system media and pollsters with their incessant horse- race treatment of the mid- terms, including understating the impact of abortion as as issue, their overuse of Republican-sponsored polls in their aggregate polls, and underestimating the "youth vote"? They blew their their narrative that there would be a "red wave" sweeping Democrats from power. In a year Republicans should have won 40 or more seats in the House, they may end up with less than a 10 seat advantage -- may. Democrats have a solid chance to hold the Senate, with John Fetterman flipping a Senate seat in Pennsylvania and incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock leading the lump in Georgia (which likely will go to a runoff in December). A media that's used a narrative of "it's always bad news for Democrats" got its comeuppance last night.
More later.
BONUS: Digby's assessment of the Republican media strategy was spot on.
