The Sweep: What Just Happened?

Democrats didn’t exactly win, but Republicans definitely lost.

By and
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Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake (right) and Senate candidate Blake Masters. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Short Answer

This was a cross-wave election and the Democratic wave swamped the Republican one. The result looks a lot like the status quo on the surface, but there is a lot of turbulence underneath. Democratic candidates defied history, presidential approval numbers, and economic indicators to maintain control of the Senate and hold Republicans to the slimmest of majorities in the House. And while we will dive into some of the potential explanations for that, the simplest one is that Democrats didn’t exactly win, but Republicans definitely lost.

Long Answer

Abortion. Candidate Quality. Trump. Let’s take them one at a time.

Abortion. I’ve been saying for weeks that it would be hard to know what role abortion played in these midterms because winning and losing isn’t enough. But we have at least a few reasons to think it helped Democrats. 

First, compare the ballot-measure results in Michigan to the governor’s race. Gretchen Whitmer won with 54 percent of the vote; the ballot measure to amend the state constitution and “establish a new individual right to reproductive freedom” won with 57 percent of the vote. But about 85,000 fewer people voted for the ballot measure than in the governor’s race. So maybe it’s a wash, right? Nope. Whitmer got 2,427,985 votes. The ballot measure got 2,480,000. So even though almost 2 percent of the gubernatorial voters didn’t vote either way on the ballot question, the pro-choice side got more votes. This almost certainly means the ballot measure—i.e., abortion rights—drove turnout for Whitmer and not the other way around. 

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Comments (49)
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  1. Avatar photo
    Mike.Podhaizer

    Can't wait to hear Sarah's take on how all this stuff may have played into Trump's decision to announce last night.

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    Earl King

    The cabal that dumped on Trump and Scott were Independents. Never Trumper, Anti or Traditional Republicans who grew weary of Trumps act. Quite the trifecta to blow off.

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    Dave Conant - MO

    One of the best Sweeps yet. Thanks Sarah.

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    1. Avatar photocircle-angle-nib
      Sarah Isgur vertical-nib Author

      Thank you!!

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  4. Jccarper46

    Thanks. I was under the impression that they were on opposite ends of the abortion/life issue. Correct?

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  5. Jccarper46

    I would like to hear Tarheel perspective on the Budd/Beasley contest.

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      Paul B

      Budd hails from the more rural western North Carolina, which gave him more cultural cache with rural voters across the state. He also ran as the East Coast Katie Hobbs: generic Republican poll question come-to-life. Both NC political parties have long had a healthy, bottom-up relationship with their respective electorates, unlike most current swing states. For whatever reason, they're both relatively well-run. That means "generic Republican" is a political winner.

      Cheri Beasley had two things running against her: (1) the cultural stink of a recent 2020 election loss (400 votes or not, that still matters); and (2) she was a novice first-time *political* candidate. NC judicial elections only recently became partisan, which made her tempermentally ill-suited to a modern NC political campaign.

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    PWLaw

    Redistricting played a role in the outcome of the midterm elections. David Wassermann of the Cook Political Report provided a succinct explanation during an interview with NPR’s Scott Simon, if anyone is interested in looking into it. In Florida alone, DeSantis gave Republicans an additional 4 seats. The division went from 16R-11D to 20R 8D. As Wasserman noted, “ that alone right there is likely to be the size of the Republican majority. The brutal redistricting map in FL was upheld by courts. The Democrats tried the same with redistricting in New York and the map was tossed. Also, the redistricting in Alabama and Louisiana, done to deny proportionally accurate representation of Blacks, are tied up in SCOTUS.

    I’m so tired of partisan redistricting where elected officials pick their voters and wish every state would agree to independent panels to perform the task.

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    David M

    Thanks Sarah for your informed update and wisdom.

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  8. RonaldReeseSmith

    Thanks Sarah for your usual great analysis. On abortion, while I generally pro-Life, I’m concerned about the lack of compassion in some of the amendments. Exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother all total are a very small total of abortions yet those circumstances are critical for compassion. When we go all out with no compassion, we lose. The late Richard Halvverson, Chaplain of the US Senate once said in my presence that many of the issues were closer to 49 to 51 yet the senators had to vote up or down, 100 or 0. In my opinion, as long as states only up or down on abortion, prolife legislation will lose with the voters.

    Concerning McConnell and Rick Scott: as a Floridian, I think Rick Scott is the worst senator this state has had in my lifetime. He wants to President so bad that he manages to position himself for himself. Sad

    Lastly, until Trump gets off the stage, which will likely only happen when he dies, the Democrats will continue to win elections. He has done far more damage to the republic than good. He is clearly the “smallest” president in our history. He is not re-electable, thank goodness, but his ego and insecurities will not allow him to ride off into the sunset. It will ge sad to see him go down hard. If… and I say if, he manages to actuary the nomination to run again, or dies do as an independent, which is a strong possibility, his only success will be to help the Democrats.

    But other than that, I don’t have any strong opinions.

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  9. Avatar photo
    Emily

    Speaking of candidates and constitutional amendments… is it possible to get a maximum age to hold federal public office added to the constitution? The geriatocracy is never going to yield power, and as much as I have respect for the older people I know, there is no way that the average 80 or 90 year old is tracking the complexities of governing the way they did 10 years ago.

    It’s time for Biden and Trump and Pelosi and Hillary and McConnell and Feinstein and all the rest of the octogenarians to RETIRE already and let someone else do something else. But no one IN power will vote themselves OUT of power, even though it would probably be broadly popular with the American people. So is there some way the people can petition to get an amendment on the ballot? Without having to go through legislatures?

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    1. Diane Hansen

      Don’t make a knee-jerk reaction…..age in the abstract has nothing to do with it. One’s cognitive and physical abilities are what should be measured. Biden has a physical and cognitive problem, and Trump is just a gasbag. I’m not a Pelosi fan based on her politics, but her cognitive and physical skill are chugging along just fine. Mitch McConnell is still sharp as a tack, whether you agree with him or not. Age has nothing to to do with it.

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        Emily

        I agree in principle, just as there are some younger people who have the leadership and vision to be potus. But I think anything that can be construed as subjective would become a weapon in the war of red and blue. Bernie is a fine example of spry and energetic, but has anyone seen some of these older senators recently? When you’re 90 I just have to wonder who’s running the district. At some point you’re just too old for that intensity.

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        1. Diane Hansen

          I don’t disagree that some have overstayed their cognitive and physical ability, but others who are aging up have not. There was a time when age was considered wisdom, and there is a ton of merit and truth in that. Wisdom comes from experience and. 40 yr old may have a quick wit and physical strength, but they don’t have the experience which equals wisdom.

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        Pat @ Tavi Hall

        I'm not entirely convinced that Trump doesn't have some cognitive issues nor am I convinced Biden does.

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        1. Diane Hansen

          I don’t entirely disagree regarding Trump. Daddy created a narcissistic, spoiled bully, who never taught Donnie any morals or ethics. Narcissism is a disease. As for Biden, I don’t agree….his lack of cognitive and physical capabilities are noticeable.

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            Pat @ Tavi Hall

            Can you link to the physical things? The speech part is too long standing for me to find it helpful.

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  10. Avatar photo
    George.Skinner

    The extremes of both parties have been given a message that people don't like what they're offering. The trick now is to get them to hear the message. Progressives in the Democrats got spanked in 2020, and their attempt to ram through their agenda in the past 2 years put the whole party's fortunes in jeopardy. 2020 was a warning shot to Republicans that MAGA wasn't popular, but it was ignored and proved to be sufficiently toxic to allow the Democrats to survive their own follies.
    MAGA and progressives are big enough parts of their party support that the parties can't win without them, but they've established that their policy preferences undermine their party's ability to actual win an election. A political pragmatist would see that as great leverage to condition their support on some movement towards their goals. I see some movement among progressives to reconcile themselves to this reality among the Democrats, although it's going to be tempting to backslide because their 2022 performance was surprisingly non-horrible. I can't see any hope of MAGA figuring this out since they seem to prefer self-servicing conspiracy theories rather than grappling with a complex and sometimes unsatisfying reality. The result is they'll marginalize themselves until they get snuffed out.

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