Molly Ball: “The President’s party typically loses ground in midterm elections because only the opposition is roused to anger. But these were not typical midterms: turnout surged to levels not seen in decades for a nonpresidential contest. In 2018 it wasn’t only Democrats who were riled up—Republicans, too, came out at high levels, perhaps vindicating Trump’s strategy of ginning up his core supporters with race-based and culture-war appeals. The nation didn’t come together in agreement; it drew further apart. America remains, as Trump revealed it to be two years ago, an angry and divided country whose citizens blame one another for its ills.”

First Read: “It appears that Democrats are on their way to netting more than 35 House seats — a bigger pickup than the some 30 seats the party gained in the 2006 midterms and the most for them since the post-Watergate 1974 midterms.”

There are a handful of races either too close to call or headed to runoff, per First Read:

• House: CA-10, CA-29, CA-45, CA-48, CA-49, GA-7, ME-2, MN-1, NM-2, NC-9, NJ-3, UT-4
• Senate: AZ-Sen, FL-Sen, MS-Sen
• Governor: GA-Gov

Roll Call has more details on the uncalled races.

Ron Brownstein: “With Tuesday’s House wins, Democrats have established a commanding position in diverse, white-collar, information-age suburban seats around the country. Conversely, after the election, the Republican caucus now tilts even more preponderantly toward districts that are more white, less affluent, and less well-educated than the national average.”

“The result is a widening trench between the parties in the House that encapsulates the growing distance between a Democratic coalition centered on minorities, Millennials and college-educated white voters, most of them clustered in urban areas, and a competing GOP coalition that revolves around evangelical, rural and blue-collar whites who often live beyond it.”

New York Times: “In New Jersey, voters slashed the number of Republicans in Congress from five down to two, and possibly only one.”

“In New York, Democrats declared victory in three congressional races in President Trump’s home state, ejecting the last remaining Republican from New York City.”

“And in the six other states in the Northeast, the lone remaining Republican congressman, Representative Bruce Poliquin of Maine, was clinging to his seat on Wednesday, his fate to be decided by the second choices of third-party voters through ranked-choice voting.”

Nate Cohn: “It wasn’t necessarily the night of either party’s dreams. The Democrats are poised to gain around 35 seats after Tuesday’s elections. Republicans seem likely to gain a few seats in the Senate, and they triumphed in some high-profile governor’s races.”

“But Democrats faced formidable structural disadvantages, unlike any in recent memory. Take those into account, and 2018 looks like a wave election, like the ones that last flipped the House in 2010 and 2006.”

President Trump ripped losing Republican candidates who had distanced themselves from him during the midterms, NBC News reports.

Said Trump: “Mia Love gave me no love, but then she lost. Too bad.”

He listed several other GOP lawmakers he said rejected his “embrace” before falling to Democratic opponents: Reps. Carlos Curbelo in Florida; Mike Coffman in Colorado; Peter Roskam in Illinois and Barbara Comstock in Virginia, among them.

Walter Shapiro: “The new Democratic House majority — and the almost certain return of Nancy Pelosi as speaker — represents a triumph over gerrymandering. Not too long ago political orthodoxy decreed that the Republicans would control the House until after the 2020 Census because the district lines were so artfully drawn by the GOP after the Democratic wipeout in the 2010 elections.”

“Instead, the 2018 House elections were a belated vindication of Hillary Clinton’s failed 2016 strategy of pitching herself to college-educated suburban Republican women. These women were Clinton’s target audience when she maladroitly described half of Trump supporters as ‘a basket of deplorables’ because of their ‘racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic’ views.”

“As Trump in the White House fulfills every dire prophecy about his vitriolic fear mongering, affluent suburbs are increasingly becoming part of the permanent Democratic coalition.”