Do Democrats have inflated expectations for the midterms? Examining the case

Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters

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Democrats are hungry for a blue wave in the November election, and a series of recent polls has them thinking they could pull off victories in some deeply red territory that would have seemed unthinkable a few months ago.

Expectations for the party are so high that one could envision a fair amount of disappointment in the party — and celebration among Republicans — if Democrats don’t shoot the moon on Election Day and take control of both chambers of Congress.

“I think Democrats are in striking distance in enough states to have a really good day,” CNN senior political commentator David Axelrod said Monday on “The Arena” with Kasie Hunt. “But it wouldn’t surprise me if they fell short of taking over the Senate.”

On the other hand, Axelrod wouldn’t be surprised if Democrats got 53 seats, he said. “It really depends on how high this wave is,” he said.

The expectation, though, is that there will be some degree of wave.

In 2022, after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Democrats and President Joe Biden all but celebrated that they lost only nine House seats and control of the House of Representatives.

“While the press and the pundits are predicting a giant red wave, it didn’t happen,” Biden said a day later , describing the results as “a good day for democracy” even though Republican control of the House put a stop to his legislative agenda.

Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images/File

In 2018, after the GOP lost 41 House seats and control of the chamber, Trump pointed to Republicans maintaining their Senate majority and bragged that they “dramatically outperformed historical precedents.”

No matter what happens this year, Trump is likely to allege there is voter fraud — regardless of whether there is any evidence — and to try to claim some form of victory.

Democrats are excited about this election. They held a nearly 10-point advantage over Republicans in a recent ABC News / Washington Post poll when voters were asked which party they will support in November. In Senate races, Democratic candidates are competitive against Republicans in red states including Alaska, Iowa, Kansas and Texas.

There are also tight races in purple states like Michigan and Georgia, where Democrats are hoping momentum can save seats they currently hold. The inevitable post-election review of polling will hinge on whether pollsters this year captured or over-indexed Democrats’ enthusiasm.

The president’s party almost always loses House seats.

Only twice in the past 100 years has the president’s party not lost at least some – and frequently a lot of — House seats.

The two exceptions were in 2002 under President George W. Bush, in the run-up to the US invasion of Iraq after 9/11; and in 1998, when the dot-com boom buoyed the economy and there was a public backlash to the impeachment of President Bill Clinton.

A change of a few seats can be a very big deal. When Democrats lost nine seats in 2022, they narrowly lost control of the House, a clear defeat. But it was far from the landslide many expected that year.

Much bigger swings can happen. In 1994, Democrats lost 54 seats in the so-called Republican revolution of Clinton’s first midterm. In 2010, the so-called tea party revolution, Democrats lost 63 seats, something then-President Barack Obama called a “shellacking.” In both midterms, Democrats lost control of the House.

During Trump’s first midterm, in 2018, Republicans lost control of the House when they lost 41 seats.

Only 35 Senate seats were up for grabs in 2018; senators serve six-year terms, and only a third or so are on the ballot in any given election. Of the 35 seats up in 2026, only 10 are on CNN’s list of key races. Democrats need to win eight of those 10 to reach 51.

Of those key races, three — Georgia, Michigan and New Hampshire — are seats currently held by Democrats. Seven of the key race states — Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas — are currently held by Republicans.

It’s hard to imagine a swing on that level in this election because there are fewer hotly contested seats after years of gerrymandering in many states. Only 21 seats are labeled as “tossup” by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. Of those tossup seats, 15 are held by Republicans and only six are held by Democrats.

Ten Republican-held seats are either solidly, likely or leaning toward Democrats, according to Cook. One more is held by a lawmaker who left the GOP to become an independent.

Eight Democratic seats are either solidly, likely or leaning toward Republicans.

Kent Nishimura/AFP/Getty Images

It means Democrats may only need to win one or a few tossup seats to take the House majority. But if Republicans win a large portion of those tossup seats, they will be able to claim they breached the wave.

The House and the Senate can go in opposite directions. In the two most recent midterms — Trump’s first-term midterm in 2018 and Biden’s midterm in 2022 — the president’s party lost enough House seats to lose control of House of Representatives, but actually gained seats in the Senate.

In 2018, Republicans flipped four Senate seats and Democrats flipped two, gaining two seats for Trump’s party even though Trump’s approval rating was quite low at the time. In 2022, Democrats flipped one seat when the national mood was against Biden.

Control of either the House or Senate has changed with regularity in recent years, to the extent that every election is a change election of some kind. But only twice in the past 100 years — in the 1994 Republican Revolution and the 2006 Democratic wave against the war in Iraq — did both the House and Senate change hands in the same cycle.

President Donald Trump’s low approval rating is dragging down Republican candidates, and some recent polling has Democrats dreaming about wins in unexpected places.

Each of these races is also unique. The Democrat running for Senate in North Carolina is a popular former governor, Roy Cooper. The Democrat running in Georgia is an incumbent, Jon Ossoff. The Republican running in Texas is the state’s relatively unpopular and scandal-plagued attorney general, Ken Paxton. In Kansas — where there hasn’t been a Democratic senator in nearly 100 years — the moderate pastor running as a Democrat has the party hoping.

Polling in both states suggests tight statewide races for Senate and governor. Democrats have long tried to manifest the idea that a Senate seat in Texas could be up for grabs. It hasn’t happened since 1988, the year before Talarico was born. In Kansas, an independent candidate led an unpopular Republican in pre-election polling back in 2014, only to lose on Election Day. So it would not be unprecedented for Republicans to re-surge in these states.

If there’s a true blue wave, start looking even further into red states, like in South Carolina, where Annie Andrews , the Democratic doctor who has been the subject of insults by Trump, wants to unseat Sen. Darline Graham , who was appointed to fill the seat left by her brother, Lindsey Graham, after his death this year.

Both chambers are narrowly divided. Democrats would need to net four seats in each chamber to gain a majority.

In fact, Republicans’ House majority is the narrowest in history. Headed into Election Day, there are 218 Republicans — a bare majority in the 435-member chamber, although the one independent member, Rep. Kevin Kiley of California, votes with Republicans for administrative purposes. There are 214 Democrats and two vacancies, one left by each party. It would be a major disappointment for Democrats if they don’t pick up a few seats.

In the Senate, there are currently 53 Republicans, 45 Democrats and two independents who function like Democrats.

Democrats would need to reach 51 in order to control the 100-member chamber, since Vice President JD Vance, in his role as president of the Senate, casts tie-breaking votes.

Trump has been setting expectations for his entire second term, acknowledging the history that the president’s party usually loses some midterm seats. He has also been governing with a kind of wild abandon, getting as much done as possible as if in anticipation of a more hostile Congress in the second half of his term.

Democrats in charge of either the House or Senate would mean much more oversight of Trump’s administration in the form of investigations and hearings — powerful tools in exposing an administration to sunlight and trying to shape public opinion.

Eric Lee/Getty Images

They would also have more control over the US budget. Trump has made a point of not spending money appropriated by Congress, but a Democratic majority in the House and Senate could put new restrictions on Trump in spending bills. That power would be less if Democrats took control of only one chamber.

There will be harsh limits on Democrats if they do take control of the Senate. In no plausible scenario will either party have the kind of supermajority needed to overcome a filibuster. That means spending bills would ultimately need bipartisan support — and buy-in from the White House — to pass.

Trump has shown a willingness to allow government funding to lapse even when Republicans control the House and Senate.

Republicans tried to inoculate some of Trump’s priorities from spending fights; they bypassed the filibuster and used budget reconciliation earlier this year to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement for multiple years, for instance, for the rest of Trump’s term. They knew history suggested a wave might be coming.

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民主党人渴望在 11 月的大选中掀起蓝色浪潮，最近的一系列民调让他们认为，他们有可能在一些深红地区取得胜利，而这在几个月前似乎是不可想象的。

人们对民主党的期望如此之高，以至于可以预见，如果民主党在选举日未能取得巨大成功，控制国会两院，那么民主党内部将会出现相当程度的失望，而共和党人则会欢欣鼓舞。

“我认为民主党在足够多的州都处于有利位置，很有可能取得不错的成绩，”CNN资深政治评论员大卫·阿克塞尔罗德周一在卡西·亨特主持的“The Arena”节目中表示。“但如果他们最终未能拿下参议院，我也不会感到惊讶。”

另一方面，阿克塞尔罗德表示，如果民主党赢得53个席位，他也不会感到惊讶。“这真的取决于这股浪潮有多强劲，”他说。

不过，预计会出现一定程度的波动。

2022 年，最高法院推翻了罗诉韦德案后，民主党人和总统乔·拜登几乎都在庆祝他们只失去了 9 个众议院席位和对众议院的控制权。

“尽管媒体和评论员预测会出现巨大的红色浪潮，但这并没有发生，”拜登在一天后说道，并将结果描述为“民主的好日子”，尽管共和党控制的众议院阻止了他的立法议程。

曼德尔·颜/法新社/盖蒂图片社/文件

2018 年，共和党失去了 41 个众议院席位和对众议院的控制权后，特朗普指出共和党保住了参议院多数席位，并吹嘘说他们“远远超过了历史先例”。

无论今年发生什么，特朗普都可能声称存在选民舞弊——无论是否有证据——并试图宣称自己取得了某种形式的胜利。

民主党人对这次选举充满信心。在最近ABC新闻/华盛顿邮报的民调中，当被问及11月将支持哪个党派时，民主党人领先共和党人近10个百分点。在参议院选举中，民主党候选人在阿拉斯加、爱荷华、堪萨斯和德克萨斯等传统共和党州也与共和党候选人展开了激烈的竞争。

在密歇根州和佐治亚州等摇摆州，选情也十分胶着，民主党希望凭借这股势头保住目前已占据的席位。选后对民调的分析必然会揭示，今年的民调机构究竟是准确捕捉到了民主党选民的热情，还是高估了他们的热情。

总统所在的政党几乎总是会失去众议院席位。

在过去100年中，只有两次总统所在的政党没有失去至少一些——而且通常是很多——众议院席位。

两次例外分别是 2002 年乔治·W·布什总统执政期间，在 9/11 事件后美国入侵伊拉克之前；以及 1998 年，当时互联网泡沫提振了经济，公众对弹劾比尔·克林顿总统强烈反对。

几个席位的变动可能意义重大。2022年，民主党失去了九个席位，以微弱劣势失去了众议院的控制权，这是一次明显的失败。但这远非当年许多人预期的压倒性胜利。

更大的选情波动也可能发生。1994年，在克林顿首次中期选举中，民主党在所谓的“共和党革命”中失去了54个席位。2010年，在所谓的“茶党革命”中，民主党又失去了63个席位，时任总统奥巴马称之为“惨败”。在这两次中期选举中，民主党都失去了对众议院的控制权。

在特朗普的第一次中期选举（2018 年）中，共和党失去了对众议院的控制权，失去了 41 个席位。

2018年参议院只有35个席位需要改选；参议员任期六年，每次选举只有大约三分之一的席位需要改选。在2026年改选的35个席位中，只有10个被列入CNN的关键选战名单。民主党需要赢得这10个席位中的8个才能达到51个席位。

在这些关键选区中，佐治亚州、密歇根州和新罕布什尔州的席位目前由民主党人把持。阿拉斯加州、爱荷华州、堪萨斯州、缅因州、北卡罗来纳州、俄亥俄州和德克萨斯州这七个关键州的席位目前由共和党人把持。

很难想象这次选举会出现如此巨大的选情波动，因为多年来许多州的选区划分不公导致竞争激烈的席位减少。无党派的库克政治报告（Cook Political Report）只将21个席位列为“摇摆席位”。在这些摇摆席位中，15个由共和党人把持，只有6个由民主党人把持。

库克表示，目前由共和党把持的十个席位要么稳固，要么极有可能被民主党拿下，要么倾向于民主党。另有一个席位由一位脱离共和党成为独立议员的议员占据。

八个民主党席位要么稳固，要么很可能被共和党拿下，要么倾向于共和党。

Kent Nishimura/AFP/Getty Images

这意味着民主党可能只需要赢得一两个摇摆席位就能夺取众议院多数席位。但如果共和党赢得这些摇摆席位中的大部分，他们就可以宣称自己已经扭转了局势。

众议院和参议院的走向可能截然相反。在最近两次中期选举中——特朗普2018年的第一任期中期选举和拜登2022年的中期选举——总统所在的政党在众议院失去了足够多的席位，从而失去了对众议院的控制权，但实际上却在参议院获得了席位。

2018年，共和党赢得了四个参议院席位，民主党赢得了两个席位，尽管当时特朗普的支持率很低，但共和党还是为特朗普所在的政党赢得了两个席位。2022年，在全国舆论对拜登不利的情况下，民主党又赢得了一个席位。

近年来，众议院或参议院的控制权频繁易手，以至于每次选举都带有某种变革的意味。但在过去100年中，只有两次——1994年的共和党革命和2006年民主党反对伊拉克战争的浪潮——众议院和参议院在同一选举周期内同时易手。

唐纳德·特朗普总统的低支持率拖累了共和党候选人，而最近的一些民调显示，民主党人梦想着在一些意想不到的地方取得胜利。

每场选举都各有特色。北卡罗来纳州的民主党参议员候选人是颇受欢迎的前州长罗伊·库珀。佐治亚州的民主党候选人是现任参议员乔恩·奥索夫。德克萨斯州的共和党候选人是该州相对不受欢迎且丑闻缠身的总检察长肯·帕克斯顿。在堪萨斯州——近百年来该州从未有过民主党参议员——一位温和派牧师以民主党人的身份参选，让该党看到了希望。

两州的民调都显示，参议院和州长选举的竞争异常激烈。民主党长期以来一直试图营造一种德克萨斯州参议院席位可能易手的假象。这种情况自1988年以来从未发生过，而1988年正是塔拉里科出生的前一年。在堪萨斯州，一位独立候选人在2014年选前民调中领先于一位不受欢迎的共和党候选人，但最终却在选举日败北。因此，共和党在这些州重新崛起并非史无前例。

如果出现真正的蓝色浪潮，那就应该进一步关注红色州，比如南卡罗来纳州。在那里，民主党医生安妮·安德鲁斯（Annie Andrews）曾受到特朗普的侮辱，她希望取代参议员达琳·格雷厄姆（Darline Graham）。达琳·格雷厄姆是今年她哥哥林赛·格雷厄姆（Lindsey Graham）去世后被任命填补其空缺的参议员席位的。

两院席位均十分接近。民主党需要在两院各净增四个席位才能获得多数席位。

事实上，共和党在众议院的多数席位是历史上最微弱的。截至选举日，共和党在众议院仅有218个席位，勉强占435个席位中的多数，尽管唯一的独立议员，来自加利福尼亚州的凯文·基利众议员，出于行政目的会与共和党人一起投票。民主党有214个席位，还有两个空缺席位，两党各一个。如果民主党未能赢得几个席位，对他们来说将是一个巨大的打击。

目前参议院有 53 名共和党人、45 名民主党人和 2 名行事作风像民主党人的独立人士。

民主党人需要获得 51 个席位才能控制拥有 100 个席位的参议院，因为副总统 JD Vance 作为参议院议长，拥有打破僵局的投票权。

特朗普一直在为他的第二个任期设定预期，他承认总统所在的政党通常会在中期选举中失去一些席位。同时，他也以一种近乎疯狂的姿态执政，尽可能多地完成各项工作，仿佛预料到在他任期的后半段，国会将会对他更加敌对。

如果民主党人掌控众议院或参议院，就意味着对特朗普政府的监督力度将大大加强，包括调查和听证会——这些都是让政府接受公众监督、试图塑造舆论的有力工具。

Eric Lee/Getty Images

他们还将对美国预算拥有更大的控制权。特朗普一直刻意不动用国会拨款，但如果民主党在众议院和参议院都占据多数席位，就可以在支出法案中对特朗普施加新的限制。如果民主党只控制一个议院，这种权力就会有所减弱。

如果民主党最终掌控参议院，他们的权力将受到严格限制。在任何可能的情况下，两党都无法获得足以打破阻挠议事所需的绝对多数席位。这意味着，支出法案最终需要两党支持，以及白宫的同意才能获得通过。

即使共和党控制着众议院和参议院，特朗普也表现出愿意让政府资金失效的意愿。

共和党人试图让特朗普的一些优先事项免受支出之争的影响；例如，他们绕过冗长辩论程序，并在今年早些时候利用预算协调程序为移民和海关执法局提供了多年资金，直至特朗普任期结束。他们知道历史经验表明，一波新的支出浪潮可能会到来。