Is the Blue Wave turning into just a ripple?

In a highly contested Ohio Congressional special election, held yesterday, the Republican is the projected winner; though the final tally is still considered too close to call:

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-poli...election-2018-danny-oconnor-troy-balderson-12

One congressional race doesn't mean all that much, but this might have a greater impact:

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/mood_of_america/generic_congressional_ballot

The generic congressional poll now has the Blue Wave down to just a 4% edge, with Democrats leading Republicans by a 45% to 41% margin. It was as much as an 8% advantage about a month ago.

Still a few months till election day, but if Republicans can keep the spread to 4 points or less, they might have a good shot at holding onto their House majority.

 

Given that a formerly solid red district turned a deep purple and was about as close as could be, I'd say the Blue Tsunami is swelling. I wouldn't worry too much about minor poll fluctuations one way or the other.

 

An 8% nationwide advantage shrinking to a 4% advantage is not what I'd call a "swelling Tsunami".

 

Republican analysts were shocked this morning after seeing the data.

Looks like a lot more Republican seats are up for grabs then they thought

Spinning this is a Congressional problem.............. They LUV Trump still

 

They're only polls. Has 2016 taught you naught?

 

You'll have to ask yourself if 2016 taught you naught. It appears so to me.

 

LOL! The rabid leftists are destroying the democrat party. Good riddance.

 

A Democrat from the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party ala Bernie is great.

Yes to rabid leftist destroying public support/votes for Democrats.
The diff being, Bernie is not rabid nor does he encourage his supporter to behave so.

Moi

​

 

Its pretty sad when the best the democrats can call a victory is a close race.

lol

Yea, good luck with that guys....cheers, here's to more close races and your winning!

 

Looks like Trump wore out his Welcome !!

 

This has all been an advertising campaign to promote the election. There has never been a wave of anything, just the normal uptick for an out of power party in the midterms.

 

Trump wasn't on the ballot. Meanwhile, people are "walking away" from the Dem party.

 

I like the new honest Democrats over the old lying ones. At least they're willing to admit they want open borders and gun bans, rather than say they don't.

 

I wonder how the Democrats 2020 campaign slogan "MS-13 Aren't So Bad" is going to work out for the Democrats ?

 

Only in the sense that more people seem to be voting for them - a very strange definition of walking away IMO.

That said, this result should be yet another one to give those who think that there will be some kind of "Blue Tsunami" significant pause for thought. So many of the special elections have turned out to be "close but no cigar" for the Democratic Party candidate and the one that they did win against the head was against a candidate with a raft of child abuse allegations against them - so hardly a reliable bell-weather.

Through a combination of gerrymandering and voter suppression, the GOP has already engineered a 7-10% electoral advantage in many states (in that the Democratic Party would have to poll 7-10% more votes than the GOP to achieve parity on seats). Gerrymandering will have no effect on the Senate races but voter suppression will have an effect on Senate and House races.

In my opinion, given the number of Democratic Party incumbents in states won by President Trump, and that the Alabama seat is almost certain to flip back to GOP, the Democratic Party will do well to only lose a little ground in the Senate, and I think there is a non-negligible chance (or risk depending on your viewpoint) that the GOP could even end up with a super-majority.

In the House I see the Democratic Party comfortably out-polling the GOP but still ending up with a minority of the seats due to the electoral advantage I noted abode. This may actually be the least worst outcome for the Democratic Party. The "unfairness" of it may motivate the faithful out to vote in bigger numbers in 2020, the GOP will still nominally control the house but the tightness of their majority combined with President Trump's apparent inability to get much legislation through House and Senate will mean that not much will happen legislatively but that the Democratic Party cannot really be blamed for paralysing things.

There are however a few things that could change everything:

• If there's a sudden economic crisis in the next couple of months then that will hit the GOP - I don't think that's likely
• If there's a huge scandal that may hit the GOP - so far President Trump has been impervious so I think that's very unlikely
• If the Democratic Party suddenly find a set of policies to motivate the electorate to go out and support them - from this side of the Atlantic, I have seen little or no evidence of that

So I reckon

The Democratic Party will reduce the GOP majority in the house and lose a little ground in the Senate - no Blue Wave in sight

 

I'm pretty sure that's not going to be their campaign slogan. Sounds more like one of the President's tweets.

 

It's what President Trump will be using in 2020, running campaign commercials and at Trump rallies quoting the top leadership of the Democratic party ..."MS-13 aren't so bad."

 

I see now where even the RCP average, which is often a bit over weighted with left-leaning polls, gives Democrats only a 3.9% advantage in the generic poll. One poll, IBD-TIPP, has it even, with Republicans and Dems each at 45%. Rasmussen's poll should be out tomorrow, and it will be interesting to see how that one is trending

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/2018_generic_congressional_vote-6185.html

I don't think the socialist agenda of the left is playing all that well with middle America.

 

Blue Wave Watch: Generic Ballot Gap Shrinks Again, Democratic Registration Recedes in Key State.....


We're roughly two-and-a-half months out from election day, and I'm frequently struck by the dissonance in the midterm tea leaves. On one hand, Democrats continue to outperform their traditional metrics -- often significantly -- in off-year and special elections, likely pointing to a very blue November for Republicans. Last week's apparent, narrow victory for the GOP in Ohio fit this pattern, raising additional concerns about the party's standing heading into the general election. If not for a series of very close calls (including the closest of calls) in tight races around the country, Republican losses could have already established a very clear and negative narrative.

But there are offsetting and countervailing factors, too. First and foremost, the economy is performing very well, which tends to boost the party in power. The GOP's agenda of deregulation and tax reform -- opposed by every Democrat in Congress -- has yielded economic dividends, improving the employment climate and spurring growth. And while the generic Congressional ballot appeared to be see-sawing back toward Democrats after Republican gains in the spring, that indicator is tipping back in the other direction:

Does this trend matter in mid-August? Perhaps not, as this examination of previous midterm cycles suggests. It's entirely plausible that Democrats are on their way to a strong showing, as the conventional wisdom suggests. But comparing 2018 polling to previous years seems a little strange, given the degree to which the media and President Trump's formal opposition routinely cast his presidency as uniquely abnormal and threatening. If the overall electorate shared this sense of alarm, you might expect to see public surveys inexorably pointed to a backlash-style blowout. Instead, Republicans are hanging in there, and Trump's approval floats along in the lowish-40's; not strong by any means, but also not disastrous, and remarkably stable in a political era infamous for instability. Meanwhile, in a major battleground state -- playing host to hotly contested gubernatorial and Senate races this year -- the Democratic Party has actually lost ground on a key metric, compared to 2016 (when Republicans won the state). Here's Politico:

Last week we wondered “where’s the blue wave?” when Democratic absentee ballot returns weren’t as proportionately high as they were at this time of the election in 2014, the last midterm. Today, we begin to wonder even more now that the state has released the final numbers of registered voters for the August 28 primaries. The numbers show that, as a share of the electorate, Democratic Party registrations have fallen about 2 percentage points since the 2016 election (to roughly 37 percent). Registered Republicans have held steady at 35 percent. And no-party-affiliation voters have increased about 3 points. True, Democrats have won four contested bellwethers this cycle in Florida. But so far, there’s not a crush of people rushing to become Democrats. The big X-factor: independent voters.


RNC Research

✔ @RNCResearch




Nancy Pelosi to Democratic candidates: Say whatever you need to win – I’ll get your support as leader after the election https://youtu.be/19vJrQAlZSs

3:22 PM - Aug 12, 2018 ….snip~

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybe...atic-registration-falls-in-key-state-n2509394


Oh my.....who would have thought that the Demos are down by 2% with their people voting. Plus now more Blacks, Latinos and Asians giving Trump more support. Blue Dog Democrats sticking with Trump, and the #Walkaway is putting some pressure on the Demos. Throw in their division with the Socialists and their numbers continue to get worse.

 

Hows that play out when Demos aren't making them numbers to come out to vote, being under what they brought out in 2014?

 

I think the blue wave was just hit with a toxic bloom of red reality...

 

It never really existed. It was media marketing.

 

And the IBD poll was very accurate during the 2016 campaign.

 

Vote Democrat!
The Party of Open Borders, Gun Control, Tax Hikes, Socialism, and MS-13!

The DNC should pay me for that.