Early Signs Point to a Wave Election

Charlie Cook: “Since In­aug­ur­a­tion Day, Pres­id­ent Trump has had the low­est job-ap­prov­al rat­ings of any newly elec­ted pres­id­ent since the first ‘sci­en­tific­ally based’ poll by George Gal­lup in 1936. More than any­thing else, midterm elec­tions are ref­er­enda on the in­cum­bent pres­id­ent. Ob­vi­ously no one knows what is go­ing to hap­pen in next year’s midterm elec­tions, but ana­lysts who have watched con­gres­sion­al elec­tions for a long time are see­ing signs that 2018 could be a wave elec­tion that flips con­trol of the House to Demo­crats.”

“The late Demo­crat­ic Speak­er Tip O’Neill was fam­ous for hav­ing said, ‘all polit­ics is loc­al.’ I would add an im­port­ant caveat: ‘All polit­ics is loc­al, ex­cept when it’s not.’ Roughly once a dec­ade we see a tid­al wave elec­tion, al­most al­ways at midterm, in which an in­vis­ible hand seems to boost can­did­ates of one party and drag down can­did­ates of the oth­er. Can­did­ates who nor­mally win big end up win­ning by smal­ler mar­gins. Law­makers who usu­ally have com­pet­it­ive races of­ten get sucked away by the un­der­tow. Dis­tricts that should be safe are no longer safe. Strong cam­paigns lose to weak cam­paigns, un­der­fun­ded cam­paigns topple well-fun­ded cam­paigns.”