I don't know the compleat results from the election, but I do have some thoughts.
There was no red wave (Maybe just a pink trickle)
This election set tradition on its head. In a midterm election, the party occupying the White House normally loses seats. And with low approval numbers for President Biden, coupled with high inflation, many pundits (including many Republicans leaders expected a "red wave". They thought it might resemble past years when the ruling party lost dozens of seats in the House, and control of one (or both) houses of Congress. That simply did not happen.
The polls were right
A lot of pundits were criticizing the election polls. And some of that criticism was justified, since many of them were wrong in 2016 and 2020. But they had adjusted their samples, and this time they were right on target. They told us that this would be a close election, and they were right.
Control of Congress
Control of both houses are still not official, but it looks like the Republicans may squeak out a small majority in the House of Representatives. If so, it will be due to some gerrymandering in red states (especially in Florida). In the Senate, it looks like Democrats could maintain control by a tiny margin.
Currently it stands at 48 senators for each party. Alaska is using ranked-choice voting to decide between two Republicans, so that gives the Republicans 49. Kelly has a significant lead in Arizona, and is likely to win there -- giving the Democrats 49. Nevada is a dead heat with many votes still could be counted. And Georgia will have a run-off between Warnock and Walker in about 4 weeks. It could easily finish in a tie of 50 senators for each party (as is the current situation).
Abortion mattered more than people thought
Pundits were starting to discount the effect abortion would have on the election, saying that inflation would matter more to voters. But while inflation mattered to many voters (especially Republicans), the abortion issue brought extra voters to the polls (young people voting for the first time and "sometime" voters who don't normally participate in a midterm election). That evened things up.
Republicans ran a lot of bad candidates
Another thing that helped Democrats was the quality of Republican candidates. The GOP ran a lot of MAGA, election-denying, conspiracy-believing candidates -- and the public didn't like them. Some of them won, but many didn't -- and it helped the GOP to blow their golden opportunity.
Gridlock may rule the next two years in Washington
If the Republicans are able to squeak out a majority in the House (and that is likely), it is very unlikely that they will compromise with the Senate and the President on anything at ll. Their are too many MAGA nuts among them. They will try to investigate and impeach the president (which won't succeed), and they will try to cut Social Security and Medicare. They've already said they would do that, but Democrats are not going to allow it. But they won't compromise. The next two years will have much arguing, but nothing new will get done.
There is likely to be more election-denying (and possibly more insurrection) in future
While many election-deniers lost, many won -- especially at a state level. They may try to steal the next presidential election since more of them will be in a better position to do it. Our democracy is still at risk.Nothing has been solved and our democracy is still at risk.
