Three guesses and the first two don’t count. Don’t take the outcomes of early exit polls too seriously, but perhaps one key finding out of the interviews with Election Day voters is identifying the dog that didn’t bark.

And that was the “threat to democracy” dog, which Democrats hyped as their top message of the midterms. According to the exit polls, it didn’t even get a tail wag, a result that surprised CNN’s panel:

"You know what's missing from this one, two, three, four, five, top five issues? Democracy."

"Oh, yeah."

"It's not even in here." pic.twitter.com/iFCdOWyhgB

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) November 8, 2022

It didn’t even show up in the top five among Democrats:

What Republican and Democratic voters said was important to them, per exits: pic.twitter.com/TIeLb2Iu9C

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) November 8, 2022

So what did matter? As it turns out, abortion appears to have mattered more than other polling suggested, coming in second at 27% as the top priority for in-person voters. However, the economy outstripped it at 32%, and the other issues fit better within the GOP’s final arguments:

Frankly, that might worry some in the GOP, who had argued that abortion voters might not emerge as a major factor. However, it also won’t be clear what the split is on those voters until well after the polls close. It may well be that the debate over Dobbs and the end of Roe has incentivized a big pro-life turnout, especially since this issue will now move to the state legislatures. That 11% among Republicans likely signals that the issue cut both ways to a significant extent, while the 15% of Democrats who prioritized inflation probably did so for the same reasons 47% of Republicans did.

The rest of these numbers don’t look good for Democrats, but under the circumstances, they don’t look awful either. Joe Biden getting to 45% in job approval seems like a better-than-anticipated outcome. However, the problem may not really be Biden, or at least not all of it. Only 25% of voters are happy with the current direction of the US, with 73% unhappy — and almost half of those “angry” about it:

CNN FIRST EXIT POLLS 👇 pic.twitter.com/yKwIgBw7Vg

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) November 8, 2022

Sixty-one percent report that gas prices have created a hardship for them, which is never good for the party in power. More specifically, though, a majority now trusts the GOP to deal with inflation over Democrats:

According to preliminary results, voters trust the Republican Party over the Democratic Party to handle inflation by a moderate 8-point margin of 52% to 44%.

In large part given economic concerns, President Joe Biden is underwater in job approval with 45% approving of the way he’s handling his job as president, while 54% disapprove.

That’s not far from the lowest presidential approval rating in midterm exit polls since 1982, George W. Bush’s 43% in 2006.

Don’t take most of this too seriously, and don’t take it as predictive at all. The final exits will give a fuller picture of what took place today, but even then, exits have a tough time with early voting. Election Day turnout is usually more Republican anyway.

However, the fact that Democrats’ main midterm pitch didn’t even show up in issue polling is a big red flag for their prospects tonight. Joe Biden and Democrat candidates essentially just spent the last several weeks talking to themselves … and voters who are already unhappy and/or angry are not likely to have missed that.