MSNBC's election analysis team was in top form Tuesday night as the first exit polls began to roll into newsrooms around the country.
Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd was the first to chime in, repeating his earlier claim that both Democrats and Republicans ran on an anti-Obama platform.
"Republicans handed the people that didn't like the gridlock, President Obama," Todd said. "And Democrats said, we'll get this niche voting group, and this niche voting group, and where was the message?"
Chris Matthews added some particularly insightful analysis.
"ISIS exists," Matthews said, referring to the Islamic State terror group in Iraq and Syria. "How did that cease to be an election issue? Somehow, did we change the channel?"
Both Rachel Maddow and Andrea Mitchell had a profound explanation for the lack of focus on the IS and Ebola crises in the final stretch: it was all a Republican scare tactic.
"But it's not a substantive argument," Mitchell said. "It's a scare tactic by the Republican opponents of Democratic incumbents who tried to focus on ISIS and Ebola in the scariest, most non-factual ways to take the eye off the real issues."
In the end, Todd admitted that the GOP simply outsmarted Democrats by "nationalizing" the election.
"They see they have a map that's their direction. This is about getting Republicans out. So they found ways to do it," Todd said.
"Oh, the issue is immigration this week, fine. We'll make that a national issue. If it's ISIS, fine. if it's Ebola, fine. And then the Democrats again just got caught up in, I think, 'this is not a case where the sum is greater than the parts,' and they only focused on the parts."