The coincidence of Democratic gains in the House and Republican gains in the Senate led many pundits — and not just right-wing spinmeisters — to argue that the evening was a disappointment for Democrats anticipating a “blue wave.”
This is very wrong, and you already knew that. But I published a pithy argument in my local paper that may help convince the skeptics in your life.
Although nearly all of my stories here are on birds, my day job is actually Professor of Political Science, specializing in the American news media and elections.
I occasionally contribute to local and national publications, and I was prompted to submit this piece to the Fort Worth (of newly-blue Tarrant County!) Star-Telegram after enduring copious warblegarble from some otherwise-astute pundits and friends, and of course many commenters in the election-night threads here.
My argument relies on a basic political science framework for understanding democratic processes and outcomes:
Election outcomes are a function of two factors: preferences and structure.
Preferences are the collective public mood. When citizens express their opinions by voting, which party did they prefer overall? Meanwhile, structural factors are all of the things that intervene between preferences and outcomes. The easiest example is the Electoral College in a presidential election. The majority preference might be for one candidate, but the rules of the game can result in the other candidate winning.
If we’re talking about outcomes, then yes, it was a mixed bag at the national level (down-ballot? Not at all). But that was entirely a function of the structural biases favoring Republicans in both the House and Senate.
In the House, gerrymandering is obviously the culprit. While Democrats ended up with their biggest seat yield since 1974 (!!), some spinners insisted that it didn’t match the most recent Republican waves (54 seats in 1994 and 63 in 2010). While this is true if we’re talking about the outcome, the preferences — expressed most cleanly through the national popular vote, which now looks to be a more than 7% Dem advantage — were every bit as lopsided as in those undeniable “wave” years.
The Senate is trickier. Writing off a (probably) 2-seat loss as being consistent with a blue wave sounds to many reasonable ears like liberal spin. But it isn’t, if you keep your eye on the structure. The map was the most lopsided we’ve seen in my lifetime, and Democrats did as well as any expert would have predicted, say, a year or two ago:
Stripped of partisan spin, the Senate outcome is easy to interpret: Democrats held every Clinton state and won nearly half of the Trump states. That result, though understandably disappointing to Democratic partisans, was only possible in a Democratic wave year.
So if the question is what message the electorate was trying to send, the answer couldn’t be clearer: we issued a stinging rebuke to the president and his party.
Though these insights will be old news to the hardest of the hard-core political junkies here, and may not convince your uncle who only watches Fox News, I provide a neutrally pitched analysis that distills the outcome to its concise essence. So give my local paper some much-needed clicks, and pass it on!
Thanks for reading,
Adam