US midterms: Why a Republican 'wave' never happened

 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-63569850

"There's an argument to be made here that this was as much a referendum on Donald Trump as it was anything else," he said. "And if you look at the candidates that he supported, particularly the election deniers running for governor, Senate or secretary of state positions, many of them lost. Even if he got a couple of wins, it's not like he expanded any sort of Republican base or majority."

Mr Taylor's assessment was echoed by Alex Heide, a previously undecided 31-year-old voter in Georgia who said he was "really turned off" by Mr Trump's endorsement, in his case of Republican candidate Herschel Walker.

"I don't agree with Democrats on everything," he told the BBC before voting. "But I feel it's significantly more stable than the Republican platform."