https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/09/us/politics/republican-election-results.htmlFrom the article:
All the conditions were there for a wave, but in the end Republicans appeared to have generated no more than a red ripple.
At the end of a campaign in which the fundamental conditions for Democrats seemed dire — inflation at a 40-year high, an unpopular president — Republicans could do no better than to end the evening still scratching here and there for the seats they needed to win control of the House, the minimum they could call a victory.
All indications were that they would end up at best with one of the weakest performances in decades by the out-of-power party against a first-term president’s party, a stark contrast to Republican gains of 54 House seats against President Bill Clinton in 1994 and 63 seats against President Barack Obama in 2010.
Abortion proved to be the motivator Democrats believed it would be, helping to boost a number of Democratic candidates who leaned into the issue, including Representative Abigail Spanberger of Virginia, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Josh Shapiro, who won the governor’s race in Pennsylvania, and Senator Patty Murray of Washington.
Voters in Michigan, Kentucky, California and Vermont were on track to preserve or expand abortion rights through votes on ballot measures.
And in Wisconsin and North Carolina, Republicans fell short of state legislative supermajorities that would have allowed the party to pass partisan priorities like abortion bans, overriding the governor’s veto.
Exit polls indicated that overall, the economy and inflation were weighing most on their minds, and they favored Republicans to fix the economic uncertainty. But abortion was a strong driver as well, with 27 percent of voters saying abortion was the most important issue to their vote.
The 60 percent of voters who said they were dissatisfied or angry about the overturning of Roe overwhelmingly supported Democrats. Voters who said they were dissatisfied but not angry were more split between Democrats and Republicans.