Most experts expected a red wave this December, and most of them were wrong. The results of this year’s midterm elections were exceptionally mixed. Democrats just barely maintained their senate majority after winning close contests in Nevada, Arizona and Pennsylvania and may even expand it pending the results of the Georgia runoff election that took place on Dec. 6.

Republicans narrowly took control of the House of Representatives by a margin of just 4 or 5 seats (depending on results that are still trickling in from two close house races), ending a unified Democratic government and presenting a major obstacle for President Biden’s agenda. This article will recap the results and how they compare to what was expected to happen.

TL;DR

Democrats were able to defy historical expectations, hold onto the Senate and mitigate losses in the House, largely due to the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe vs Wade, Republican extremism and Republicans fielding weak candidates in a number of key races.

What did we expect to happen?

Most experts and pollsters expected Republicans to win the House handily and narrowly take control of the Senate. Historically, the party out of power does very well in the midterms: in 2006 Democrats gained 6 senate seats and 30 house seats, flipping control of both chambers from the Republicans, in 2010 Republicans rode the tide of backlash over Obama’s Affordable Care Act to a House majority as well as control over many governorships and state legislatures, followed by a Senate majority in 2014, in 2018 anti-Trump sentiment caused a blue wave that gave Democrat’s control of the House for the first time in 8 years.

For most of the past two years, many expected that this midterm cycle would be like any other and Biden’s unpopularity would carry Republicans to victory. However, over the summer, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s landmark decision overturning Roe vs Wade, things began to look up for Democrats as abortion energized the democratic base and Republicans began to look more and more extreme with their hardline anti-abortion stances. Many people thought abortion could be a strong enough issue for Democrats to defy historical headwinds and maintain control of one or both chambers of Congress.

However, in the last two months before the election, polls showed abortion fading as a top issue among voters, increasingly replaced by inflation and high gas prices. This trend coincided with a significant Republican rebound in the polls, leaving them with an 84% chance of winning the house and a 59% chance of winning the Senate according to 538’s final forecast. It seemed like a red wave was once again assured.

What actually happened?

The red wave did not appear. Democrats held the Senate and only narrowly lost the house, and there were very different results in different parts of the country.

In Michigan, a ballot measure to overturn a 1931 law banning abortion and to protect access to the procedure in the state passed handily. Republicans, led by fiercely anti-abortion governor candidate Tudor Dixon, were obliterated, losing the governor’s race by nearly 11% to incumbent Democrat Gretchen Whitmer and losing control of both chambers of the state legislature for the first time in 40 years.

In Pennsylvania and Arizona, both very competitive states that Trump won in 2016 and Biden won in 2020, Democrats won both the governor and senate races in each by impressive margins, aided by extremist Republican candidates who took anti-abortion and anti-democracy stances.

In Wisconsin, the results were much more mixed. Incumbent moderate Democratic governor Tony Evers won reelection by a solid 3-point margin, and Democratic Secretary of State Doug LaFollette won by less than half a percentage point. However, progressive Democratic Lt. Governor Mandela Barnes lost by 1 point to incumbent Ron Johnson in the Senate election.

Nevada was another extremely competitive state. Incumbent Sen. Catherine Cortez-Masto (D) won reelection by less than a percentage point, but Republican Joe Lombardo flipped the governorship by a point and a half. Democrat Francisco Aguilar prevailed by about 2 points over Trump-backed election denier Jim Marchant in the secretary of state race.

There were also a few states where Republicans overperformed. The most notable of these was Florida, where incumbent Sen. Marco Rubio (R) won by 16% and Gov. Ron Desantis (R) was reelected by a nearly 20-point margin, in a state that Trump won by just 3% in 2020. Republicans also won 20 of 28 House seats in the state after an extremely aggressive gerrymander that Gov. Desantis rammed through the state legislature earlier in the year.

New York, traditionally a very solid blue state was disappointing for Democrats this cycle. After an extremely harsh gerrymander that would have given Democrats as many as 22 out of 26 House seats was struck down by the state Supreme Court, Republicans won several competitive house races and came within 6 points in the Governor’s race. Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer won reelection by an unimpressive 13%.

Why didn’t the red wave appear?

It appears that polling heavily underestimated the importance of abortion as an issue, and experts overestimated the effect Biden’s approval rating would have on the midterms.

The last few presidents, especially Trump and Biden, have suffered from consistently low approval ratings as the country grows more polarized and fewer people are willing to support elected officials from the opposing party. However, it also seems that presidential approval ratings may no longer have as much of an effect on elections as in past decades.

According to the Washington Post, voter turnout in this election was 46%, the second highest for a midterm in the 21st century after 2018. High turnout years generally favor Democrats, because the people who vote inconsistently are usually younger voters and minorities, who tend to break for Democrats.

High turnout and enthusiasm among Democratic voters has largely been attributed to abortion as an energizing issue. Michigan is a great example of this. With an abortion referendum on the ballot and a Governor’s race focusing heavily on Tudor Dixon’s anti-abortion stance at the top of the ticket, Democrats overwhelmingly swept a traditionally very competitive state, despite a Republican-leaning national environment.

Many experts have credited Democratic success to poor candidate quality on the Republican side. In Arizona, Pennsylvania and Georgia, Republicans nominated candidates with very extreme positions on abortion, democracy and a range of other issues, who were also plagued by a range of scandals and questions over whether they even lived in the states they were running in (cough cough Dr. Oz).

Extremist candidates also cost Republicans several key governorships. In Wisconsin and Arizona, far-right Republicans Kari Lake and Tim Michels both lost close races to moderate Democrats and in Pennsylvania, election-denier Doug Mastriano lost to Democrat Attorney General Josh Shapiro by nearly 15%, after several scandals including a widely circulated photo of Mastriano wearing a Confederate uniform.