More a Ripple Than a Wave

This may be the most misunderstood election in modern American political history, even given that it came immediately after another misunderstood result in 2022. It was, if anything, a bifurcated election. As horrific as the presidential outcome was for Democrats, those claiming that it was a wipeout haven’t looked very closely at what happened below the top of the ballot, where the extraordinary thing is how ordinary the results were.

In the House, which is a far better barometer of where the country is than the Senate, after zillions of dollars were spent, the net change will be minimal—within a couple seats of the 221-214 majority Republicans held going into the election. Virtually nothing happened (unless you are or work for someone who lost). Republicans will almost certainly have a majority, though a tiny one—probably the tightest margins for the House since the 72nd Congress (1931-33), when they had 218 seats to Democrats' 216 (although Democrats did get to organize the House because of deaths of several Republican members after the election but before the swearing-in took place). The kind