"Just What Happened?"

Harry Enten asks and answers the subject question:

... Biden and the Democrats are in a position to have one of the four best midterms for the party controlling the White House in the last century.

So just what happened? It’s pretty clear that general election voters punished Republican candidates they saw as too extreme – on issues such as abortion and/or for being too closely tied to former President Donald Trump.

Still, the election results were extremely unusual. I went back through the record books. Since 1922, there have been three previous instances of the president’s party gaining (or losing no) Senate seats and losing fewer than 10 House seats in the president’s first midterm.

All of them – 1934, 1962 and 2002 – are thought to be monumental achievements for the president’s party and major exceptions to rule, which suggests the party controlling the White House usually loses seats in a midterm. 

Democrats’ performance this year has funneled down to the state level as well. We already know, based on projected races, that this will be the first time since 1934 that the president’s party had a net gain of governorships in a president’s first midterm. (1986 is the only other post-1934 midterm, regardless of when it fell in a presidency, when the president’s party had a net gain of governorships, though Ronald Reagan’s GOP had massive losses in the Senate that year.)

Not only did the Democrats make history as noted by Enten above, they made history in critical downballot races:

Overlooked amid frantic punditry about the "red ripple" in Congress: Democrats quietly won and defended majorities in state legislatures across the country, weakening GOP power on issues at the heart of the national political debate.

... State legislative races are on pace to be the highlight of the Democratic ballot. If Democrats hold on to Nevada, this will be the first time the party in power hasn't lost a single chamber in a midterms year since 1934, according to the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee.  [snip]

Democrats defended their state-level majorities in Massachusetts and Maryland and won governor seats left open after Republican retirements, securing a "trifecta" in both states. Helmed by a historic $50M investment from the DLCC, they also kept the Maine legislature, the New Mexico and Colorado state Houses, and secured a supermajority in both chambers in Vermont (which has a GOP governor).

• In Michigan, Democrats flipped the House and Senate to take complete control of the state government for the first time in 40 years. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer won re-election by double-digits, vaulting the rising Democratic star into the national spotlight.
• In Minnesota, Democrats also secured a trifecta after taking the state Senate.
• In Wisconsin, Democrats denied Republicans a supermajority that would have allowed them to override Gov. Tony Evers' veto — the only thing standing in the way of a statewide abortion ban.

Democrats also have a chance to flip the Pennsylvania House and one or both chambers of the Arizona State legislature.  Stay tuned.

Let's pause to thank voters across America for prioritizing democracy and women's rights:  to voters age 18-29 who turned out and voted heavily in favor of Democrats;  to the heart of the Democratic base, women -- especially African-American women -- voting on reproductive rights;  to Latino voters who supported Democrats 2-1 (except the gusanos in Florida); to independents tired of "the crazy";  to all voters who realized American democracy was being tested and who responded with a resounding rebuff to the anti- democracy party.   

It was a good, democracy- defining election for our country.  That's what just happened.

BONUS:

 

Ironic isn’t it? Mitch McConnell stealing a Supreme Court seat cost him his last chance at being Leader McConnell.

— Claire McCaskill (@clairecmc) November 13, 2022