Reflection Time, 6 Months Since The 2018 GE's, Was It A Blue Wave Overall?

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

Overall, combining house, senate, local, governor, etc. all the races combined, was it a blue wave or not? I would still say overall, yes.

[PAK Man]

Absolutely it was a blue wave. I'm confused as to why anyone would think it wouldn't be.

[GM Team Member and Senator WB]

Absolutely it was a blue wave. I'm confused as to why anyone would think it wouldn't be.

The Senate.

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

Absolutely it was a blue wave. I'm confused as to why anyone would think it wouldn't be.

In the late evening when Dems were looking to only pick 25 house seats up ish, barely win the house, blowing many gov races, and net lose 6-7 senate seats, and bombing several races they should have done much better, if not won in, some CNN talking head was like, this was not a blue wave, this was a display of American polarization yadda yadda.

[Frenchrepublican]

Of course it was.

Dems have won the Congressional PV by 10 millions votes. We have lost 40 seats in the House, for the first time in two generations AZ has a D senator, the seat of GHWB is now represented by a D congresswoman, dems have a 11/1 advantage in the NJ House delegation.

You can explain some GOP defeats because of bad candidates :
-OH sen (Renacci could have won if he had run a real campaign),
-WV sen (if you trade Morrissey for Jenkins in WV Manchin would have lost),
-KS gov and NY 22nd where Kobach and Tenney have no one to blame but themselves for their defeat
But generally speaking it's difficult to deny that 2018 was a D wave.  

[Senator Incitatus]

I think it was a massive victory, but it will remain unclear whether it was a historic victory on par with 1920, 1958, 1994, and 2006 for some time. It hasn't changed the direction of the country in any noticeable way yet, unless you really thought Republicans were going to manage some sort of healthcare reform. (They were not.)

[Orser67]

It was a wave, but it was definitely a step down from the waves of 2010 and 1994. Losing Senate seats in IN, ND, and MO is fine, but I still consider the party's Senate/gubernatorial losses in FL, OH, GA, and IA to be really disappointing.

[OneJ]

It was a wave, but it was definitely a step down from the waves of 2010 and 1994. Losing Senate seats in IN, ND, and MO is fine, but I still consider the party's Senate/gubernatorial losses in FL, OH, GA, and IA to be really disappointing.

I can understand FL, OH, and IA to be disappointing gubernatorial losses, but why Georgia?

[MT Treasurer]

It definitely was a wave, the fact that Republicans barely managed to pick up (only) two seats with a historically lopsided R-favorable map and unpopular/weak Democratic incumbents in ND/MO/FL isn’t going to change that. Sure, they lost a few gubernatorial races they could have won, but let’s not pretend that Republicans swept all competitive gubernatorial races in 1994, 2010, or 2014.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

40 seats in House probably solidifies Dems redistricting chances for at least until 2024; when another prez election is up

[Rookie Yinzer]

It was a wave, but it was definitely a step down from the waves of 2010 and 1994. Losing Senate seats in IN, ND, and MO is fine, but I still consider the party's Senate/gubernatorial losses in FL, OH, GA, and IA to be really disappointing.

I can understand FL, OH, and IA to be disappointing gubernatorial losses, but why Georgia?

The Democratic candidate was exceptional and would have made history.

[Annatar]

Outside of the house arguably not, if we split the election into 4 parts, the house, senate, governors and  state legislative seats then it is obvious the house was clearly a wave, 40 seats is a wave, in relative terms it ranks 7th out of 37 midterms since WW2 in terms of the number of seats the out party gained or the 81st percentile.

The Senate of course was not a wave, even considering the map, 4 dem incumbents that had been elected 6 years earlier were defeated, the most since 1934 for the out party, furthermore the Dems did not just lose in deep red states but lost even in states the other party had won by 1% like Florida.

In terms of governors the picture is more mixed, 6 of the 7 pickups were in states that the incumbent party had lost or won by less then 1%, Kansas being the only exception, in a true wave the Dems would have penetrated into states the incumbent party won by bigger margins such as Florida or Georgia. Still the overall numbers are pretty good.

The state legislative gains however were quite weak, the dems had a net gain of only 309, somewhat below average and flipped only 6 chambers, so in the state legislative chamber criteria it was clearly not wave.

Overall my judgement would be a wave in the house, somewhat of a wave in the governors races and no wave in the Senate or state legislative chambers. If all the different areas have to show a wave for it to be called a wave then it was not a wave. If the focus is just on the house then it could be called wave.

[Xing]

It was a wave, despite some disappointing outcomes (thus why I wouldn't consider it a "tsunami.") Democrats could've won both Florida races, a couple more gubernatorial races, and some House seats that the DCCC stupidly triaged, but Democrats were never going to win literally every competitive race. Some races which were considered competitive weren't really winnable to begin with (TN-SEN, OK-GOV, WI-01, etc.)

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

The state legislative gains however were quite weak, the dems had a net gain of only 309, somewhat below average and flipped only 6 chambers, so in the state legislative chamber criteria it was clearly not wave.

I agree with most of the spirit of this post but this point ignores the fact that Ds were fighting against crazy gerrymanders in several states - that 309 statistic isn't directly comparable to an "average" that includes previous elections.

[Sestak]

Yes, but clearly not a tsunami such as 2010 or 1994 (or even 2006).

[HarrisonL]

Yeah it was undeniably a wave.