My takeways

[Person Man]

First of all, all of those Republican and amateur pollsters were full of sh**t.  It was propaganda specifically designed to try to bring back a "typical" midterm dynamic. Full stop. The frozen pizza included.

Looks like both Houses will be within 1% of raw members. Each party has about a 5% chance of getting to 52 members in the senate. (Rs sweep through the inevitable runoff, Ds have enough ballots in Wisconsin) If R's sweep the Colorado River, Walker is DOA. He's an embarrassment and people then won't need him. Walker only wins if there is a NV/AZ split and he is "it".  If the "needle" is right, Democrats can get to 51 if Ralston isn't full of sh**t. The House NPV is probably right in line with partisan polling averages (within two million voters either way). The margins in the House will range from Democrats somehow only losing 3 and Speaker Jeffries to Republicans getting lucky a few more times and perhaps picking up a dozen seats. Republicans will have between 215 and 225 seats. Which will be interesting. McCarthy is no Pelosi. Even if McConnell is elected again, Murkowski can be the next Machinema.  Local culture war issues dominated at the state level.

Democrats solidified their half of the rustbelt friewal on abortion. Republicans greatly overperformed in Florida by avoiding abortion altogether. Refugees and concerns about police brutality being overblown helped Rs overperform in some blue and purple states. That's how Republicans are still in contention in the senate.

Ultimately the election proves 2 things:

Americans know that there isn't really a short term "cure" to inflation beyond staying the course. The only thing we can do is wait for supply to finally catch up to demand and engage in some industrial policy and technological innovation to reduce reliance on unreliable trading partners and relatively expensive low-skilled labor.

Americans have made it clear what laws and ideas concerning their communities are acceptable. Some form of elective abortion is a reasonable accommodation. That said, current proposals to deal with humanitarian disasters and police brutality are not feasible. Americans continue to show that they are ready to have adult conversations about drugs.