The biggest story from the 2014 midterms was not just how Republicans reclaimed red states they lost in 2008 – it’s how they won seats in states where Democrats thought they had no risk. The GOP won most of the so-called “purple-state” Senate battlegrounds, nearly swept the lineup of competitive blue-state governors’ races and picked up House seats in districts that seemed like Democratic locks.

Before the elections began, the White House was preparing to spin away a solid Republican night by claiming that most of their victories came in conservative states. After all, the GOP needed only a red-state sweep to retake control of the Senate. But it soon became apparent that Republican gains were much bigger and more widespread than even the most pessimistic Democrats expected.

Even former Obama campaign manager David Axelrod, who dismissed the possibility of a GOP landslide on Tuesday, had to tweet his contrition. He said that he had dismissed the possibility of a wave election earlier in the evening, “but the returns since then say otherwise.”

The results weren’t pretty for Democrats: They got swept in Iowa and Colorado, lost a North Carolina race they thought they would win and are barely hanging on in Virginia (subject to a possible recount) in a race they didn’t even think was competitive. Republicans held on to all their contested seats, with incoming Majority Leader Mitch McConnell winning by double digits in Kentucky.

Several Senate races are either too close to call or are subject to a runoff election because no candidate won a majority. Alaska’s incumbent Democrat Senator Mark Begic trails Republican Dan Sullivan by less than 10,000 votes, but reportedly not all of the votes are in.

In Louisiana, no candidate was able to garner the required 50% of the vote, so a runoff election will be held in December between incumbent Democrat Senator Mary Landrieu and Republic challenger Representative Bill Cassidy. Most polls suggest that Cassidy will win.

In Virginia, incumbent Democrat Senator Mark Warner looks to have narrowly defeated Republican challenger Ed Gillespie by just over 12,000 votes. Gillespie may request a recount of the votes since the difference between the candidates was less than 1%.

Assuming that Louisiana and Alaska go to GOP candidates, the Democrats are staring at the likelihood of losing a net of nine Senate seats, a higher number than their worst-case projections.

And Republicans could pick up as many as five governorships, when most analysts expected them to lose several. Republican Governor Rick Scott, one of the least popular governors in the country, nonetheless prevailed in Florida. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, the Democrats’ biggest gubernatorial target, comfortably won his third election in four years.

Republicans clinched close governor’s races in deep-blue Illinois, Massachusetts, and Maryland while running neck-and-neck in Colorado. Even Kansas Governor Sam Brownback, who looked like a goner before the election, hung on in a close race.

Meanwhile, House Republicans will add at least 14 more members to their already sizable caucus, which would give them the largest majority in decades. A net pickup of 14 would give them more seats in the House than at any time since 1949.

Why did Democrats lose? Exit polls pointed to an electorate that strongly resembled that of 2010, when Republican voters turned out enthusiastically, while Democrats largely stayed home. The working-class vote – defined as voters making less than $50,000 per year, a crucial demographic for Democrats – was reportedly only 37% of the electorate on Tuesday.

Plenty of other factors conspired against Democrats. Obama’s popularity has dropped steadily for the last year as he faces crisis after crisis – some that were impossible to anticipate and some of his own making. They included the botched rollout of Obamacare, the border crisis, the Islamic State insurgency and the Ebola epidemic, just to name a few.

Democrats’ expensive, much-touted effort to expand the midterm electorate through field- organizing in targeted states proved unsuccessful – indeed, it was Republicans, not Democrats, who surprised the pundits by doing better than polls had forecasted across the map. Late Tuesday, Democratic recriminations had already begun to fly, with Senator Harry Reid’s staff openly blaming the White House for Senate Democrats’ losses in The Washington Post.

But Republicans also earned their win by capitalizing on their opportunities, rather than squandering them as they’ve often done in recent years. The new Republican senators are quite conservative, perhaps more so than any previous class, and most have stayed focused on issues voters care about.

It remains to be seen if they’ll stay that way.