We have been bombarded with the term “blue wave” for almost a year.
The narrative typically goes like this: The Democratic voters are much more enthusiastic than Republican voters going into the 2018 midterm elections. The blue voters will turn out in droves and teach President Donald Trump a lesson at the ballot box. The Democrats will not only take back the House, but also have a shot at flipping control of the Senate.
The Republicans will sustain heavy losses in the gubernatorial and state legislature elections in November, as well. A Democratic majority is emerging and will make Trump a one-term president.
Yet, as the midterm elections draw near, the purported Democratic advantages have seemingly all but vanished. Multiple recent polls indicate that voter enthusiasm for both parties has surged to a record high: Republicans are just as fired up as the Democrats.
The picture looks considerably grimmer for the Democrats in a couple of Senate races that used to be seen as pickup opportunities. In Texas, Beto O'Rourke, the Democratic challenger to Sen. Ted Cruz, is losing steam, despite receiving enormous campaign donations. In Tennessee, former Democratic governor Phil Bredesen is falling behind in the polls. In Arizona, the once high-flying Democratic candidate Kyrsten Sinema seems to have had a reversal of fortunes.
All these examples beg the question, is there really a blue wave? What if the blue wave is just another creation of the Democratic–media complex, like when Hillary Clinton was said to have a 98.2 percent chance of winning the 2016 election?
There are good reasons to be skeptical. Have you ever heard about the mainstream media hawking a “red wave?” Neither have I. In the 2010 midterm elections, the Republican Party gained 63 seats in the House in a historic victory. In the Senate, the Republicans added six more seats. At the state legislature level, the Republicans picked up 680 seats, smashing the record set by the Democrats immediately following the Watergate scandal in 1974. It was a wave election cycle of tsunami proportions.
In such a Republican year, a few weeks before the election, Politico’s headlines read, “Dem generic ballot numbers up” and “Competitive midterm landscape for Dems”; The Washington Post, “Republicans making gains against Democrats ahead of midterm elections”; The New York Times, “Poll suggests opportunities for both Parties.”
These pieces didn’t remotely reflect the election results that year. Their readers would have no idea that the Democrats were about to suffer a crushing defeat.
The mainstream media are the merchants of disinformation —the propaganda arm of the Democratic Party. If they perceive there could be a GOP wave, their instinct is to hide it or downplay it.
The goal is clear: Republican advantages in an election must be suppressed and minimized. Democratic advantages must be amplified and maximized. There might not be a “blue wave” at all, but the mainstream media badly want you to believe there’s one. This is how the “blue wave” myth came into being one year before the election.
Another reason that the “blue wave” may be greatly exaggerated is Democrats never expected that U.S. economy would boom under Trump. Historically, since 1862, the president’s party loses on average 32 seats in the House in the president’s first midterm. A robust economy tends to lessen the loss; a recession or depression exacerbates it.
For example, a strong economy helped the Democrats gain five seats in the House in 1998 under President Bill Clinton. Following the Great Recession and double-digit employment, the Democratic Party lost 63 seats in 2010. But four years later, still under President Barack Obama, the Democrats only lost 13 House seats, as a stabilizing economy in 2014 likely helped damp their loss.
While the left believed that Trump’s election would devastate the economy, the contrary happened. GDP growth will hit 3 percent this year. Business and consumer sentiments are sky-high. Amid a tight labor market, the least-educated workers appeared to have gained the most ground. A recent CBS poll indicated that 70 percent of Americans are optimistic about the U.S. economy, a number not seen in decades. If history can offer any guidance, the incumbent party will benefit from this view of the economy.
Some may point to a recent Gallup poll and claim the economy isn’t the dominant issue in the 2018 midterms. Therefore, the argument goes, the economy won’t help the Republicans.
The fallacy of this argument is that just because the economy isn’t the primary issue for Americans, doesn’t mean they don’t enjoy it. Precisely because of the strong economy, thanks to Trump and the Republicans, a majority of Americans don’t need to worry about the economy, a rarity in almost two decades. From this perspective, how does the economy not help the Republicans and undermine the “blue wave” myth?
Some recent events, such as the nasty smear campaign against newly confirmed Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and the attack and harassment of conservatives by leftist mobs, may further damage Democrats’ chances of winning the House.
On Nov. 6, Americans will go to the polls. They will likely find the much-hyped “blue wave” won’t crash ashore. Instead, they will probably see piles of the political carcasses of Democrats. There’s a good chance that the Republicans will retain control of the House and increase their majority in the Senate.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
