A N A LY S I S DEMOCRACY AND HUMAN RIGHTS THE RED WAVE THAT WASN’T Why the 2022 U.S. Midterm Elections Broke the Mold Dorian B. Kantor, Gerardo Caneva Zárate, and Diana S. Meléndrez January 2023 Democrats defied the tides of history which tells us that the incumbent president’s party suffers heavy losses in Congress in midterm elections. Despite the dire forecasts, the Demo­crats expanded their Senate majority and far outperformed expectations in the House. The pre-election“shellacking” narrative was driven by numer­ous factors such as the presi­dent’s low approval rating, economic concerns, and an increasingly out-of-control crisis at the southern border. A combination of confound­­ing variables energized the Democratic base as well as independent voters to turn out for the president’s party and softened the widely predicted midterm blow.