Anticipated Republican wave in midterms turned into "Republican sprinkle," analyst says
A GOP surge that many Republicans expected did not materialize in Tuesday's midterm elections, with Democrats doing better than expected and the balance of power in the House and Senate still unresolved Wednesday morning.
"The Republican wave turned into a Republican sprinkle, and certainly did not have the winning– the degree of wins ... that many people anticipated," Republican strategist Leslie Sanchez told CBS News.
Sanchez said that while Republicans did do well in Florida, Oklahoma, Ohio and North Carolina, they had a hard time holding their own.
"You are hearing a lot of the conversations already internally and a lot of the blame game about what went wrong," said Sanchez.
"The positives are: Republican governors did well ... and you are going to be hearing a lot about the Latino vote," she said. "Republicans did incredibly well on the Latino vote and a lot of those swing areas, and they solidified in Texas and Florida as well."
With five Senate races still to call Wednesday morning, it is still unclear who will control the Senate. Control of the House, though, is leaning in Republicans' favor as vote counts continue to come in.
One of the greater wins for Democrats came when Lt. Gov. John Fetterman defeated Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz in the battleground Senate race in Pennsylvania.
One of the key issues Fetterman ran on was reproductive rights, which exit polls found was a top issue for women.
"It's almost like there's a silent abortion vote that showed up in the electorate that wasn't showing up in the public opinion polling and I think that's gonna be something that a lot of Democrats are going to look to and be like, 'Hey, is this an issue that we can continue to be opportunistic about?'" Democratic strategist Joel Payne said.
