The 2022 'Red Wave' That Never Came
■ The claim
Ahead of the 2022 midterms, Fox News hosts including Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and Maria Bartiromo, plus commentators like Marc Thiessen, predicted a Republican wave or even a 'red tsunami.' RealClearPolitics projected Republicans would reach 54 Senate seats, and FiveThirtyEight's final forecast favored Republicans to win both chambers.
■ What actually happened
Republicans won the House by a narrow margin with only a single-digit net seat gain, well short of wave territory. Democrats held the Senate and expanded it to 51 seats after Raphael Warnock won Georgia's December runoff. Poll-based analysts later noted that the polls themselves were fairly accurate; the misses were mainly pundit expectations. Included for balance: this miss leaned toward Republicans.
■ The proof
Final 2022 House and Senate results, including the Georgia runoff.
■ Original reporting
- Raw Story: Supercut of Fox News red-wave predictions (Nov 11, 2022)https://www.rawstory.com/damning-supercut-compiles-fox-news-red-wave-predictions-after-hannity-said-he-cant-say-for-sure-where-rumors-started/
- Legal Insurrection: RealClearPolitics Senate forecast at 54 GOP seats (Nov 3, 2022)https://legalinsurrection.com/2022/11/latest-realclearpolitics-senate-forecast-is-gloom-for-democrats-great-for-republicans/amp
- FiveThirtyEight: Republicans Are Favored In Our Final Midterm Forecastshttps://fivethirtyeight.com/features/final-2022-election-forecast
■ Corrections, findings & records
- AP (via ABC17): Election takeaways, no sweep for Republicans after all (Nov 9, 2022)https://abc17news.com/news/ap-national-news/2022/11/09/election-takeaways-no-sweep-for-the-republicans-after-all/
- Roll Call: GOP had big opportunity, but voters balked at sweeping changehttps://rollcall.com/2022/11/15/gop-had-big-opportunity-but-voters-balked-at-sweeping-change/
- Christian Science Monitor: Warnock wins Georgia runoff, giving Democrats 51 Senate seatshttps://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2022/1207/Warnock-wins-Georgia-runoff-giving-Democrats-51-seats-in-Senate
- G. Elliott Morris: The pollsters got the midterms righthttps://www.gelliottmorris.com/p/the-pollsters-got-the-midterms-right
■ Wayback Machine copies
Stories sometimes get edited after publication. These links open the Internet Archive's earliest snapshot of each original.
- Archive copy: Raw Story: Supercut of Fox News red-wave predictions (Nov 11, 2022)https://web.archive.org/web/2/https://www.rawstory.com/damning-supercut-compiles-fox-news-red-wave-predictions-after-hannity-said-he-cant-say-for-sure-where-rumors-started/
- Archive copy: Legal Insurrection: RealClearPolitics Senate forecast at 54 GOP seats (Nov 3, 2022)https://web.archive.org/web/2/https://legalinsurrection.com/2022/11/latest-realclearpolitics-senate-forecast-is-gloom-for-democrats-great-for-republicans/amp
- Archive copy: FiveThirtyEight: Republicans Are Favored In Our Final Midterm Forecastshttps://web.archive.org/web/2/https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/final-2022-election-forecast
■ Grade
BAD CALL: A confident prediction or dismissal that turned out wrong. Not a lie, but on the record. How we grade →