The Republicans look set to regain the House in the midterms. But the Democrats are likely to retain control of the Senate, and they might even strengthen their position there. The “red wave” predicted by pollsters and feared by Democrats has not arrived. The end of the world has been deferred, yet again.

This was a recalibration, and the centrist message it sends might be worse for the Republicans than the Democrats. Not that it’s an endorsement of Joe Biden. The American public agree on very little, but their distrust of Washington is bipartisan and running higher than ever, and disappointment with Biden is also hitting record lows.

Joe Biden isn’t a completely lame duck but he won’t be taking legislative flight any time soon.

The voters prefer an incapacitated Congress to an actively damaging one. They hamstrung Bush II like this in 2006, Obama in 2010 and Trump in 2018. A divided Congress will struggle to achieve anything, good or bad. It could be worse.

These results are, though, a repudiation of Donald Trump and the MAGA rabble. Trump’s will-he, won’t-he routine overshadowed the midterms. His presence allowed the Democrats to claim that “democracy was on the ballot” in these midterms. That is hyperbole, but this is America.

It worked in the 2018 midterms and the 2020 elections, and it worked on Tuesday.
It will work in 2024 if Trump is the Republican candidate for the presidency. Trump hinted last week that he might announce a run as early as next week.

As much as a third of the Republican membership has followed him into the reality-challenged wilderness.

Their support gives him a strong chance of once again overruling the party bosses and winning the nomination. If that happens, the most likely winner of the 2024 elections is, incredibly, Joe Biden. He will be 82 years old in 2024.

But what, I hear you say, about Jarrin Jackson, the good ole boy from Oklahoma whose campaign promises included not being “beholden to Jews”?

In August, Jackson lost the Republican nomination race to Ally Siefried, though he did beat out stiff competition to become Stop Antisemitism campaign’s “Antisemite of the Week”. This week, Jackson lost again to Siefried in the race for a spot in the Oklahoma Senate.

It looks like Jackson has a race problem. It also looks like the Republicans have a MAGA problem. The insurgents are failing to surge.

Even the ex-Fox anchor Kari Lake failed to win the governorship in gun-toting, Jesus-loving, migrant-jammed Arizona.

The Nevada race between Catherine Cortez Masto (moderate Democrat, backed by AIPAC) and Adam Laxault (MAGA, backed by Miriam Adelson, the Republican Jewish Coalition and some bloke who quotes the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”) was too close to call when we went to press.

Jon Fetterman may have a Jewish-sounding name, and he may have been supported by his parents until he was 49, but he is not Jewish.

Nor is Mehmet Oz any relation to Amos Oz. It’s one of those heartwarming immigrant tales: a Turkish Muslim doctor becomes a semi-permanent fixture on Oprah’s couch, makes a fortune selling health cures, and secures the endorsement of fellow-celebrity Donald Trump.

That was where it went wrong for Dr Oz. Fetterman suffered a stroke during his campaign for a Pennsylvania senate seat, and struggled to articulate his positions in debate. His wife Melissa doubled for him on the campaign trail. The Pennsylvanians preferred the Fetterman surrogate over the Trump surrogate.

Remember Pennsylvania’s 12th District, where Mike Irwin the Republican was running to replace Mike Irwin the Democrat? The United Democracy Project, AIPAC’s new super-PAC, spent heavily in support of Irwin the first.

But he lost by around 55 per cent to 45 percent to Summer Lee, who becomes the first African American elected to Congress from Pennsylvania. Irwin the second must be delighted.

Pennsylvania is Joe Biden’s home state. It would be fascinating to hear his freestyle ruminations on how this hasn’t happened before, and why it never bothered him. Meanwhile, Pennsylvania’s Republican strategists will start working towards the next midterms, ideally with a candidate also called Summer Lee.

Dominic Green is a Wall Street Journal contributor, a Washington Examiner columnist and a fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute