Few people expected last night to go well for the Democratic Party. In the nineteen midterms since World War II, sixteen have seen the president’s party lose at least five seats in the House. In that respect, the midterms look to be concluding in extremely conventional fashion. The Democrats will (probably) lose the House and are currently defending their razor-thin majority in the Senate, with as-of-yet undecided races in Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, and Wisconsin to determine control.

It’s still possible, then, that Republicans will ultimately recapture both houses of Congress. What is clear is that the expected and intensely hyped GOP wave has mostly failed to materialize — giving way instead to more scattered and regionally based results throughout the country. With John Fetterman’s win in Pennsylvania, Democrats actually flipped one Senate seat. In neighboring Ohio, Tim Ryan failed to defeat former venture capitalist J. D. Vance but nonetheless managed to outperform Joe Biden’s 2020 result and fight a surprisingly close race. On the flip side, Republicans significantly increased their margins in many states — notably in Florida, where incumbent Governor Ron DeSantis handily defeated Democrat Charlie Crist by well over a million votes.

So, what happened? Following last summer’s assault on reproductive freedoms by an activist right-wing Supreme Court, Republicans appeared to calculate that inflation coupled with Joe Biden’s relative unpopularity would help them mitigate any backlash and, in turn, drive turnout against the governing Democrats. In the final weeks of the campaign, that assumption looked relatively sound. Polling showed that economic issues were top of mind for many voters.