Oh for all the hemming and hawing by the GOP that this was going to be a vote against the President. Well, how fun for them. Of course, I'm sure that the tea baggers will turn out to express their irrational hatred, but that's a small group to be sure. And - of course - we have our own loyal group of progressive voters as well, right.
So, what this election is (at least the over-arching moment), really hinges on who else shows up. And right now (I stress right now and this could change - thank you ebola) this doesn't look like 2006 (go us!), or 2010 (boo them!).
To me, 2014 looks like that purest of rare birds - a real anti-incumbent wave. There's plenty of evidence:
1. I love all of the election update diaries that give us so many polls. Instead of focusing on who's up and who's down in specific races, take a look at the numbers of the incumbents (or their parties' candidates if the seat is open). Have you ever seen so many in the mid to low forties in one election cycle? And that's regardless of the distance between them and incumbents. For this analysis you need to look polls that don't always factor in leaners - that's very important.
2. This problem for incumbents is universal. Almost all of the republican governors are having it (clearly there are issues in OK and ID). There was even a poll on NM that had Governor Martinez under 50% and her opponent only 4% behind her. And - of course - you have Pat Quinn (IL), Dannel Malloy (CT) and Martha Coakley (MA-open), all Democrats and all in close races in blue states.
3. Look at the Senate. Yes, the map is favorable to the GOP, but if this was looking like their wave, explain Georgia, Kentucky, South Dakota (granted that's an open Dem seat), New Hampshire (where Jeanne Shaheen seems consistently head of Scott the Carpetbagger. And this is ignoring any weird surprises we don't see yet (I'm wondering about the SC Senate seats or even Mississippi, for example).
4. Every election has some weird buckers of the trend, right? This year it's Kansas and Iowa, supposedly: Kansas because the GOP is basically two separate parties, and Iowa because Bruce Braley wins the bonehead caught on video statement of the year when he basically discounted farmers as less important than lawyers in a farm state. What if they are not though? What if this is just the soap opera that unveils a broader trend against incumbents?
5. Look at the power of independent candidates. In some cases they help us (hell, in South Dakota we now basically have 2 shots of a 3-way neck and neck race to hold that seat). In some cases they don't (Maine's gubernatorial for example). But regardless, they are running stronger than usual in more races than usual, and have yet to fade the way they should.
6. Polling on voter participation is lower than in wave elections. Wave elections usually bring out a higher mid-term turnout than average since the party about to win smells blood. Polling for this election has the interest level down where it was in 1998 and 2002. What do those two years have in common? The party in power in the White House actually outperformed the opposition.
7. Early voting intensity levels show that Democratic early ballot requests are outpacing Republican ballot requests at close to the same spread as in the 2012 election.
So what does this mean? It means that Democrats could lose the Senate and gain control of the country's Governorships at the same time. And, conceptually, it means that Republicans could actually lose house seats.
And, possibly, it could be better than that for Democrats - but probably not a Democratic wave. Why? Well, first, all these governors in trouble are at the top of the ticket - above all the other elections. And the top of the ticket almost always creates some coattail effect.
Second, there are Democratic voter groups that could show up because they are particularly driven against particular GOP policies or campaign tactics. And if they show up it could be en masse.
In particular I'm thinking of African American voters, who are very energized over voting rights issues, and younger women, who are particularly angry about Republican social policy. I wish I could at energized Latino voters to that list, but President Obama didn't take that promised executive action (and he should have) on immigration.
Could this change? Yes. Ebola and ISIS are potential October surprises in progress. But right now, if you are a lover of elections, work for the win but break out the popcorn - because pure anti-incumbent elections are like the coming of Hailey's Comet - infrequent, but spectacular to behold.