Jonathan Swan at Axios has an interesting piece that argues that the size of the coming Blue Wave is being underplayed in the media.
The big picture: Yes, the punditocracy is being cautious about 2018 because it has fresh memories of how humiliating it felt to wake up on Nov. 9, 2016, with Donald Trump as president. But the graphic above tells a stark story and shows the pundit class may be underestimating the odds of a devastating election season for Republicans.
The bottom line: The signals look every bit as bad for Republicans as they did for House Democrats when they got wiped out in the 2010 Tea Party wave.
Swan includes some compelling numbers to back up his contention that the Blue Wave could be every bit as large as the 2010 Tea Party wipeout of Democrats in Congress:
And not only is the size of the Democratic takeover of the House being underestimated — so is the possibility of a Democratic Senate.
- "The depth of losses could be much greater than anticipated and the Senate majority might be in greater peril than anticipated."
If you listen to enough pundits on MSNBC and CNN, you constantly hear about the districts with Republican incumbents that went for Clinton, as if those are the only ones in play. But if that’s all that happens, it won’t even be a wave, more like a ripple.
Very few pundits, if any, have suggested that the Blue Wave will be massive. But if this year is even close to 2010, it very likely will be.
In 2010, Republicans gained 63 seats.
This year the numbers in the chart above look even worse for the GOP than they did for Democrats in 2010. So the turnover should be even higher — maybe 70 or 75 seats.
But alas — there has been gerrymandering and there has been voter suppression. That will surely cost us some seats. And Russian meddling is a wild card.
But it won’t be enough to keep the GOP from getting swamped by the wave.
As George H.W. Bush would say, we have Big Mo on our side.