Election results look better for Biden as Democrats avoid ‘red wave’

Initial midterm election results are rosier than expected for Democrats, who appear poised to buck historical trends and avoid major losses in Tuesday’s races.

President Joe Biden told reporters ahead of Election Day that he was “optimistic” for Democrats. He hedged that he’s “always optimistic,” even in the face of projections that Republicans would take a commanding House majority and could wrest Senate control from Democrats as voters grappled with decades-high inflation.

As results are reported across the country Wednesday, it appears Biden was right to be hopeful.

“It’s the most successful midterm for a Democratic president probably in history and certainly since the Second World War,” said Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, senior associate dean for leadership studies at the Yale School of Management. “They still might lose control of both houses, but it’s hardly the ‘red wave’ that was being marketed in the media.”

Control of the Senate and House are still undecided, according to NBC News. Biden’s party picked up one GOP-held seat in Pennsylvania, and candidates are running neck-and-neck in races for three Democratic-held seats, according to NBC.

Meanwhile, NBC’s latest projections estimate Republicans could hold 221 House seats in the next Congress — enough to flip the chamber, but hardly the commanding majority the GOP imagined.

In the weeks leading up to Election Day, Biden pleaded with voters to make the midterms a “choice” for democracy and abortion rights rather than a “referendum” on his first term. Modern U.S. midterm elections held after a new administration are almost always a rebuke of the party in office, but despite economic concerns and the president’s low approval ratings, Democrats avoided major losses, said Jess O’Connell, a Democratic operative and founder of NEWCO Strategies.

“While Democrats may ultimately lose the House, it will likely be by much less than Republicans would want,” O’Connell said. “The results so far don’t seem like a repudiation of Biden’s presidency, in fact, the opposite. By all accounts so far, close results like this are really a win for Biden and Democrats given the heavily redistricted maps and economic headwinds they’ve been navigating coming into these midterms.”

The president accomplished many of his campaign promises in his first two years in office, even checking off items like capping the price of insulin that Democrats had tried to accomplish for years. Under Biden’s watch, Congress passed laws that aimed to address climate change, provided Covid-19 relief funds and invested $1 trillion in infrastructure.

He also appointed the first Black woman to the Supreme Court and has been a leader on the world stage amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In addition, through executive action, Biden pardoned federal offenders convicted of “simple marijuana possession” and made good on his promise to forgive $10,000 worth of federal student loan debt for eligible borrowers, though that policy has been held up by legal…