What was the "Hillary cancelling the fireworks" of this midterm?

[Crumpets]

As in, a minor event or datapoint from before election day that could have been a clear sign of things to come if we had known to pay attention to it?

I can't think of a good, clear example off the top of my head, but with hindsight one I'd give is the near total lack of Democratic incumbents being yelled at at town hall events.

[Ferguson97]

Close polling in Tilt D/Lean D districts when the fundamentals would have presumably shown Republicans leading by a fair margin.

[It’s so Joever]

Special elections.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

Special elections.

Special elections have always been seen as a major datum if not *the* major datum besides polls.

[wbrocks67]

The exits, sort of? Usually the exits can be quite dubious and change thoroughly throughout the night. However, these ones seemed to be dead one, with Abortion at #2 (27%) as the top issue, not far from INflation (31%), as well as Trump's disastrous favorability rating in the early exits.

(and Abortion as the #1 issue in PA in the early exits, which held in the final ones)

[Blair]

I still think the amount they poured into Ohio- Tim Ryan was good and had a good campaign but he wasn’t that good to need what £30 million to keep him losing by 5-6%.

[Lief 🗽]

Probably all the traditional trusted predictors (WA primary, special elections, Marquette, Selzer, Ralston) which clearly did not indicate a red wave and which everyone (including me) ultimately ignored in favor of averages of right-wing propaganda polls.

[Crumpets]

Just thought of another one: Chuck Schumer caught on a hot mic talking to Biden and saying something to the effect of "our data says the only election we should be worried about in the Senate is Georgia." If AZ and NV close strong for Kelly and CCM, Georgia could very well end up being the closest result of the "big four" for Dems.

[Eraserhead]

Just thought of another one: Chuck Schumer caught on a hot mic talking to Biden and saying something to the effect of "our data says the only election we should be worried about in the Senate is Georgia." If AZ and NV close strong for Kelly and CCM, Georgia could very well end up being the closest result of the "big four" for Dems.

And it is worth mentioning Wisconsin, which very few people here even paid attention to after the summer, ended up as close as Georgia... what could have been.

[oldkyhome]

Definitely the last minute enthusiasm bump for Dems. I expected a decent red wave, but I noticed Dems jump in enthusiasm right before election day yet didn’t think much of it. Then we saw multiple states report record turnout on election day. It was predictable in retrospect.

[John Dule]

East coast pundits saying "rural Nevada" would sweep the Republicans into five-point victories in the state. Easterners are dumb and they tend to think of the rural west in the same way they think of the rural east-- a fairly even distribution of modestly populous towns and farms. They do not realize just how much of Nevada is untraveled radioactive wasteland.

[Tekken_Guy]

Just thought of another one: Chuck Schumer caught on a hot mic talking to Biden and saying something to the effect of "our data says the only election we should be worried about in the Senate is Georgia." If AZ and NV close strong for Kelly and CCM, Georgia could very well end up being the closest result of the "big four" for Dems.

CCM will probably beat Warnock’s first round margin but I imagine he’ll win the runoff by more than she does.

[afleitch]

The polls.

The dump of polls from Republican outfits, often new ones was designed to sew a 'it was stolen' narrative if the Dems eked out the victory, or the narrow defeat that seemed likely as late as mid October when most of the models were anticipating the result we ended up getting.

But either they got too ambitious by over inflating, or they did in fact know it was going to be tight, hence the need to create bigger margins and give Democrats the fear in states like NH and deflect attention there.

[Liminal Trans Girl]

I even made a post listing off all the reasons this happened in the fundamentals. After Dobbs I never expected a red wave

[Badger]

I still think the amount they poured into Ohio- Tim Ryan was good and had a good campaign but he wasn’t that good to need what £30 million to keep him losing by 5-6%.

The amount poured into the Ohio Senate race forced Republicans to reciprocate.

[new_patomic]

Kevin McCarthy's entire election party

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Kevin McCarthy's entire election party

That's a good analogy.

[Blair]

I still think the amount they poured into Ohio- Tim Ryan was good and had a good campaign but he wasn’t that good to need what £30 million to keep him losing by 5-6%.

The amount poured into the Ohio Senate race forced Republicans to reciprocate.

Yeah I phrased it badly but I meant the GOP spending was a sign things weren’t going great for them.

[Mardigroppa]

Kevin McCarthy's entire election party

Exactly what I was about to say. It doesn't get any more clearer than that.

[Crumpets]

East coast pundits saying "rural Nevada" would sweep the Republicans into five-point victories in the state. Easterners are dumb and they tend to think of the rural west in the same way they think of the rural east-- a fairly even distribution of modestly populous towns and farms. They do not realize just how much of Nevada is untraveled radioactive wasteland.

Yeah, not to go off on a tangent, but there's a big disconnect between how people east of the plains talk about "rural" areas compared to people west of the plains, and the trend line of partisan margin vs. population density is very different in the West vs. the rest of the country. (For example, "rural" Wayne County Illinois has a population density of 23 people/sq mi and "rural" Emery County Utah has a population density of 2.2 people/sq mi. But both counties gave Trump almost the same % of the vote (84.4% vs 85.9%.) I kind of think we should come up with a new word to describe the remote Intermountain West that's something between rural and just plain wilderness to make that difference clearer.

[Progressive Pessimist]

Just thought of another one: Chuck Schumer caught on a hot mic talking to Biden and saying something to the effect of "our data says the only election we should be worried about in the Senate is Georgia." If AZ and NV close strong for Kelly and CCM, Georgia could very well end up being the closest result of the "big four" for Dems.

He also said Democrats were going to net seats. It may only be one now, but he will probably be right about that too.

Definitely the last minute enthusiasm bump for Dems. I expected a decent red wave, but I noticed Dems jump in enthusiasm right before election day yet didn’t think much of it. Then we saw multiple states report record turnout on election day. It was predictable in retrospect.

I still wonder how much of that late enthusiasm was driven by the Paul Pelosi attack and the media narrative of the inevitable red wave terrifying more Democrats into voting, or if it was just always there after the Dobbs decision.

[Figueira]

I just remembered a big one:

https://twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/1589255493020979203

[One Term Floridian]

The suspicious flooding of R partisan polls in the last 2 weeks sure looks like hopium to me now

[Adam Griffin]

I mean, to keep as close to the theme as possible, I'm pretty sure there was some sort of brawl at the front door of the Mastriano watch party where he was just feet away doing nothing as people were trying to barge in or something? Can't find a mention of it now, though.

Also either at his rally or Oz's, there were like 30 people standing still while some goofy totally inappropriate upbeat music was playing. Wish I could find the tweet for that as well.

EDIT: it was Mastriano's. Found it:

https://twitter.com/letsgomathias/status/1590187745431150593

https://twitter.com/JakeTurx/status/1590223088914165763

And a little added bonus:

https://twitter.com/wbender99/status/1590322824987947009