Midterm exit polls show that young voters drove Democratic resistance to the 'red wave'

Before the stunning results of this year’s midterm elections, many pundits and analysts expected a “red wave” with overwhelming vote margins for Republican candidates for Congress and other offices. This did not occur. Instead, Republicans will gain, at best, a few seats advantage in the House of Representatives, and will still be the minority party in the Senate.In order to better understand how Democrats avoided big losses in the 2022 midterms, this analysis examines Democratic minus Republican (D-R) vote margins using 2022 exit polls data and those of earlier elections compiled by Edison Research.[1][2] They show that among people voting for House of Representatives candidates, key demographic groups that traditionally favor Democrats (young people, women, racial minorities, and white female college graduates) played a significant role—but only some of these groups showed as strong or stronger a D-R margin than was the case in the 2020 presidential election or previous midterms. Especially notable among these groups were young adults. In contrast, groups long associated with former President Donald Trump’s base (such as older voters and white male non-college graduates) stayed with Republican candidates.