Voters have been complaining about inflation for months, but they didn't punish Democrats for the economy as much as expected

• In the weeks leading up to the midterm elections, it seemed all voters cared about was the economy.
• Polling showed Americans were counting on Republicans to fix inflation and planned to vote Democrats out.

As the results of the midterms are still being tabulated, one thing is clear: the economy wasn't the only issue that drove Americans to the ballot box.

Despite pre-election polls finding Americans believed inflation was the most urgent issue facing the country and were planning to put their trust in Republicans to fix it, "a Republican wave" of victories seems not to have materialized.

The Senate is expected to come down to races in Nevada, Arizona, and Georgia — with the winner of two out of three taking control of the chamber. While the House remains uncalled, Republicans are projected to win, yet pick up fewer seats than expected.

Perhaps Americans weren't as down on the economy as polling suggested, for not all economic signs are negative. The unemployment rate remains near a 50-year low, there are over 10 million job openings in the US, inflation may finally be past its peak, and if there is a recession, it's expected to be relatively mild.

It's also possible some voters remained as dissatisfied as ever. While Thursday's inflation report came in lower than expected and may ease in the months ahead, prices still rose 7.7% in October, well above the Federal Reserve's target 2% level. However, other issues, like abortion policy, for instance, may have supplanted their economic concerns.

"The economy matters in every election, but on the heels of the Dobbs decision, reproductive rights mattered in 2022 in ways we have not seen in some time," James Long, a political science professor at the University of Washington, told Insider.

The National Election Pool exit poll conducted by Edison Research found that abortion only narrowly trailed inflation, 27% to 31%, as voters' top issue. An NBC News exit poll had a similar finding — 32% to 27%, with inflation on top. In Pennsylvania, a state where the Senate race was expected to be competitive, exit polls found more voters — 36% vs. 29% — chose abortion over inflation as the most important issue. And in all five states that had ballot measures, a majority of voters supported abortion rights.

"From deep red Kentucky to purple Michigan to blue California and Vermont, you can see a 'pro-choice wave' when it comes to referenda and ballot initiatives," Long said.

The exit polling doesn't dispute the idea that inflation and the economy were voters' top concerns. Instead, it could point to some voters viewing the choice to expand one's family or not as an economic, as well as cultural, issue. Early signs point to Democrats avoiding the electoral backlash over the economy many anticipated in addition to maintaining their position as the saviors of reproductive rights.

"It's not easy to do a horse race between these two issues to say definitely which was more important," Long said of inflation and abortion access. "They were both important to the electorate and certainly weighed on the minds of many voters."