It was an election packed with surprises.
Republicans were counting on resounding wins in the House and Senate because of voters listing stubborn inflation and a looming recession at the top of their concerns.
Instead, as the night unfolded, President Joe Biden’s party proved to be far more resilient than even the Democrats had reason to hope, as issues such as abortion rights and a general distaste for more extremist candidates playing a big part.
With power expected to be split across the two parties, Washington is entering a period of policy-making gridlock. Republicans will likely take at least the House, but by a much smaller margin that expected, while Democrats have a clear path to keeping control of the Senate.
Here are the key takeaways.
No Red Wave
Democrats staved off the complete shellacking that some polls had projected as a possibility leading into Tuesday. “It’s definitely not a Republican wave—that’s for darn sure,” GOP Senator Lindsey Graham said on NBC late Tuesday.
A smaller Republican House majority spells a tough couple of years for Kevin McCarthy if be becomes the next House Speaker. He will have to navigate a fractious and sometimes irreverent caucus that is eager to wield the power of the majority and has little appetite to compromise with Biden.
A stronger-than-anticipated night for Democrats also gives them more leverage going into the last two years of the current administration. The so-called lame-duck session is when the two parties try to cut deals on a wide range of policy issues, including the child-tax credit, energy permitting, business tax cuts and potentially the debt limit, preventing Republicans from bumping up dangerously close to economic default next year.
Race to 2024
The result of a key governor races offers clues to what the campaign for president in 2024 will look like.
Former President Donald Trump wanted to solidify his grip on the Republican party, betting that the candidates he had personally endorsed (and backed his unfounded claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him) would do well and make him the undisputed nominee for 2024.
But two things got in the way. One, several of these so-called election deniers fared poorly. In one of the hardest-fought contests in the Senate, Democrat John Fetterman defeated celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz (backed by Trump) in Pennsylvania.