Midterms: A choice rather than a referendum, and a streak rather than a wave

What was so unusual was the unevenness of the results. As noted above, Florida was a total disaster for Democrats, with Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) winning reelection by huge margins (DeSantis won by almost 20 points, an incredible spread). The rout was so total that Democrats even had to sweat out a couple of House races that should have been easy victories. New York, too, went well for Republicans, as Rep. Lee Zeldin (R, NY-1) held Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) to a modest victory and the GOP appears to have done well in House races there, including toppling Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Sean Patrick Maloney (D, NY-17), who conceded Wednesday morning. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) may well remain the Majority Leader, but he saw much of his usual crossover support collapse last night — he took over 70% of the vote when he was last up, in 2016, but is sitting at just 56%.

But in other places, Democrats did great. They won or are leading in almost every competitive House race of consequence in the Great Lakes region and scored major statewide victories in the key states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. There was some sign of this in the leadup to the election, in which Democrats were fretting about some key races in blue states but were holding up well in battleground states; this wasn’t a mirage, it was reality. A lot of nonpartisan pollsters can hold their heads up high in this cycle — some of the GOP firms who released a flood of rosy Republican surveys, not so much.