The Red Wave Died Down to a Red Ripple: A night that was supposed to be a bloodbath for Democrats but wasn't

The Red Wave Died Down to a Red Ripple - A night that was supposed to be a bloodbath for Democrats is instead a massively disappointing midterm outing for the GOP (The New Republiclink): There was a brief, mad moment back in August when it looked like maybe, just maybe, Democrats might buck one of the oldest and most durable trends in American politics: The party that holds the White House loses seats in Congress during the first midterm election. In fact, an average of 28 seats since 1934.

A string of legislative victories and a little dumb luck gave rise to the hope that Democrats might hold or even increase their majorities. But this moment proved to be all too fleeting, and in the fortnight leading up to Election Day, the narrative had shifted hard in the direction of certain Armageddon and a red wave that was going to be powerful enough to knock Democrats out of believed-to-be-safe seats. 

At the time of this writing, there’s still good reason to believe that numbers might trickle back in the direction of a good old-fashioned ass-kicking at the hands of the GOP. Those who remember the 2018 midterms, after all, will recall how what looked like an underwhelming Democratic performance turned into a solid wave election by the time all the dust has settled. 

But after all the sturm und drang—and the scandalous sums of money that were spent on these midterms—it’s very possible that GOP gains will be less than expected. Maybe far less. Perhaps nothing much is going to change in Washington at all.