How Election Week 2022 Went Down

I mean, not to get too pointed here, but the lesson here is to not let hot takes and narratives influence our expectations of an election. To Jacob’s point, if you were following the data and the professional prognostications, this is not a surprising outcome. If you were listening to the Democratic dooming and Republican gloating, it is.

I agree with Nathaniel. We expected Republicans to gain between one and 33 seats. In general, the races we expected to be close have been close, but Democrats flipped some likely Republican wins in House races in Ohio. Of course, some of the Republican gains were baked in because of redistricting. We thought it was likely we wouldn’t know about control of the Senate and the House for a few days, and with some key races yet to be called, that’s where we are.

Maya, Inside Elections ended on 199 House races pointing in Democrats’ favor, with 216 pointing in Republicans’ favor and 20 pure toss-ups. So far, we’ve seen pretty much all called House races go down as expected, with Democrats winning seven of the 20 toss-ups and Republicans winning none (yet). To me, that’s in line with what the ratings say we should have expected.