GOP Expectations Overlooked Significant Upsides for Their Side

When I made the jump from print journalism to CNBC a decade ago, one of my first surprises was the expectations game. A company would post a robust 25% gain in earnings— yet its stock price would fall because Wall Street "expectations" were for a 30% rise.

Elections work the same way. In the aftermath of the midterms, the Republicans are the big losers because the Red Wave they had hyped turned into a "ripple," as The New York Times put it. The Washington Post said, "The vaunted red wave never hit the shore." CBS News said the Dems were able to "stave (it) off," Reuters said it was "overblown."

Three days before the election, Republican pillar Newt Gingrich touted possible gains of 20 to 50 extra Republican seats in the House on "Hannity" on Fox News. This only raised expectations, as Mark Levin lamented on his podcast on the day after the election.

The actual gain will turn out to be a small fraction of that. What went wrong?

The media on both the left and the right say it must be President Donald Trump's fault (like everything else), just as he announces his run for the Republican nomination in 2024. My bet is other factors also played a role: young voters who were protesting the Supreme Court's anti-abortion Dobbs ruling; President Joe Biden's bashing of MAGA; the media's calling out "election deniers" as a threat to democracy (see "Liars, Deniers and Double Standards").

Emanating from the coverage was a blue wave of relief, given the highest inflation in 40 years, a sharp rise in gas prices, plunging stock prices, 3.6 million illegal immigrants, double-digit increases in crime in big cities, COVID-19 recriminations, and the botched pullout from Iraq.

But the game of expectations overlooks some important upsides for Republicans:

They may well take back control of the U.S. House. They can fire Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., as speaker, gridlock Democrat plans, and launch investigations of election fraud in 2020, the FBI's role in Russiagate, disastrous border policies, censorship pressure on Big Tech, the Iraq exit, untold aspects of the Jan. 6 "insurrection," Biden energy policies and U.S. gas prices ... oh, what fun.

They also can impeach President Joe Biden, a retaliatory, destructive path they should avoid, and investigate curious voting snafus in 2022.

In liberal New York state, Republicans punched above their weight. They comprise only 22% of voters, yet Republican governor candidate Lee Zeldin drew 47.1% of the vote, losing by just 5.8 points and 325,000 votes to the incumbent Democrat, Gov. Kathy Hochul (with 3.02 million and 52.9% vs. 2.69 million votes for Zeldin).

Democrats outnumber Republicans 2-1, yet Zeldin won 54 of the 62 counties in the state — and he increased the margin of Republican victory in every county he won, compared with the presidential vote in 2020, and narrowed the margin of loss in the counties he lost. He also helped Republicans flip four Democrat seats in the New York delegation to the House.

In super-liberal New York City, where crime is up 30%, Hochul fared much worse than Democrat Andrew Cuomo did in 2018. She drew almost one-third fewer votes, while Zeldin drew 60% more votes than the Republican who ran for governor in 2018 (Marc Molinaro).

In suddenly roaring-red Florida, a star is reborn. Gov. Ron DeSantis' trouncing Democrat Charlie Crist by 19.4 percentage points (59.4% to 40%) included a stunning win in Latino-dominated Miami-Dade County. It handed Gov. DeSantis an 11-point margin of victory in a county that gave a seven-point margin to President Biden in 2020. In Palm Beach County, DeSantis won by 3 points vs. Biden's 13-point margin of victory in 2020.

In the muddle of Arizona, another star is born. Kari Lake will be on Republican short lists in 2024, even though she appears to have lost the Arizona governor's race by an eyelash. Her 22 years of experience as a former local news anchor and her fearless confrontation of critics on the left make her a potent candidate, as a rival to Trump or DeSantis or as a running mate for either of them.

Dennis Kneale, @denniskneale on Twitter, is a writer and media strategist in New York. Previously, he was a senior editor at The Wall Street Journal, the managing editor of Forbes, and an anchor at CNBC and Fox Business. Read Dennis Kneale's reports — More Here.