Has the Democrats' expected midterm 'blue wave' already crested?


There's a growing expectation in Washington that Democrats will win the House and maybe even the Senate in this year's midterm elections, but there's also a creeping concern among some Democrats that the expected "blue wave" may be less like a tsunami than hoped, and may even have peaked already. "Democrats sit at the edge of a landslide repudiation of President Trump and Republicans," Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg, Democracy Corps' Nancy Zdunkewicz, and Page Gardner at Women's Voices Women Vote Action Fund wrote in a letter published by HuffPost on Wednesday. But "their momentum has stalled in the last few months."
The memo was based on a survey for WVWVAF of more than 3,000 target voters in a dozen states with competitive Senate, House, or gubernatorial races. It had "straightforward" messaging advice for Democrats: "Take away the GOP's presumed strengths — the state of the macro-economy and the new Republican tax cut — and make the most of their weaknesses on key issues that go to the heart of the case against Republican Trumpism." Specifically, Democrats should refocus "on the economic and health-care battles that most engage anti-Trump voters," plus the GOP's fiscal recklessness and unequivocally stronger gun laws.
The survey had decent numbers for Democrats: 51 percent of Democrats said the midterms "matter tremendously," versus 39 percent of Republicans, for example. "At the same time, Republican base voters, especially white working-class men, could finally point to a signature conservative policy achievement in the new tax cut law, where before they were grasping for news to justify their vote," the memo warns.
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And that's the real risk for Democrats, that Trump voters are just as excited as ever, Samantha Bee said on Wednesday's Full Frontal. To see if "the Trump Train really reached its last stop," Bee sent Amy Hoggart to a Trump rally in Michigan, where she ran into an old friend — and lots of enthusiasm for Trump and those high-end tax cuts. Watch below. Peter Weber
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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.
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