Pundits and campaign professionals have wrestled with whether 2018 will be a wave election or not, using metrics like President Trump’s job rating, candidate recruitment, fundraising and the four Congressional special elections in the last six months. A deeper more-local look at 2017 elections, though, show an already-building wave.
Over 29 contested special elections at the state level, Democrats have substantially over-performed both Hillary Clinton’s 2016 performance and Barack Obama’s 2012 performance. If that continues apace, it will be enough to flip almost a thousand state legislative races, give Democrats control of more state houses than Republicans, and most likely have similar impacts on up-ticket races like Congress/Governor/Senate. CONT.
Brian Stryker & Zac McCrary, ALG Research