One of the big rules of thumb is to not take election results to confirm your prior beliefs, so here are the things that surprised me and need to spend some time thinking about....

High turnout elections mean liberal victories. Not this time. This was a huge turnout and it was a tight election and the Dems performed below expectations down ballot. Non-voters showed up... and voted for Biden and a GOP Congress.

All politics is local. I'm a firm believer in this, but... Jesus, there is almost no split between Senate results and the presidential race in that state (save Maine). Maybe Congressional races are still local, but the Senate is nationalized.

The cratering of the Democratic vote in the Valley cost Biden Texas and I have NO IDEA how it happened. That's on me and the Dems. We took a core constituency for granted and they voted accordingly.

The Democratic Party voted incredibly Progressive in the primaries (shockingly so to me), and the general electorate hasn't caught up. Yet.

At the first opportunity, the GOP establishment excised Trump like a tumor. Trump clearly has a huge constituency, but I think the "its Trump's Party now" takes were way premature.

Trump made gains with Latinos and black men from 2016. That's mind-boggling to me, but... the GOP could (COULD, I stress) be undergoing the spasm the Democrats had 100 years ago, turning into a multi-ethnic working class party.