Song Sung Blue

 I’ve planned to write this article for the past few months, but even though I believed everything in it back than – and, in fact, have written individual articles that address many of these points – I just thought that it was too early to put all the separate topics  together in one consolidated piece with its overriding point. When I’ve mentioned it in private, it’s been greeted with more than mere skepticism, but something closer to ridicule.  So, I figured if I wrote it a couple months ago, it stood a likely chance of being seen as utterly outlandish and dismissed at first glance.  But now seems a good time to dive in the deep end.  It may well still be outlandish, but after Tuesday's elections, I don't think it will be flat-out, immediately dismissed. Which then gives a chance to explain my reasons.  And I have a lot of reasons.
 
This requires a disclaimer first, though.  I’m not an expert. This is just a guess by someone with nothing more than opinions.  But – it’s a guess based on a lot of specific reasons to support it.  Which is what I’ll get into.  I could be very wrong, of course.  But I have many reasons why I think I’m not.  In the end, going this far out on a limb and putting it on the record, I will turn out to be a monumental fool – or surprisingly wise.
 
The point of all this is that I think Democrats will not only have a Blue Wave in the 2026 Mid-Terms, but a tsunami.  I think they will pick up 30-40 seats in the House to take control.  And while I’m not sure about the Senate, I think that it is now in play, where just three months ago it wasn’t.
 
And I say all this knowing that the Supreme Court may reverse parts of the Voting Rights Act, and Democrats could lose about a dozen seats from that.  And knowing, too, that several Red states are re-gerrymandering early to gain perhaps 10 seats (though Democratic gerrymandering gains in California should off-set some of that).  All that might cut into the margin, but if a party is otherwise going to pick up 30-40 seats, then losing perhaps 15 doesn’t affect them retaking control of the House.

To be clear:  I do not say this as if it's a given, a fait accompli, and that Democrats and Independents and even moderate Republicans horrified by Trump can sit back and relax. The landscape is still very dangerous.  Trump and the MAGOPs are fascists who have shown themselves to quite literally not care about the truth, and will do whatever they can to undermine democracy and the law.  And while I think most of the lower courts can be trusted, I don't find that that holds true for the Supreme Court.  That said, I nonetheless stand by my prediction (for what little that's worth) because I think Democrats and the others are furious, vigilant, take nothing for granted, aware of MAGOPs may do, preparing and fighting back 
 
And yes, pretty much positive political prediction ends with “I hope I’m right.”  And I absolutely hope I’m right.  But these are the reasons why I think I am.
 
In every Special Election since Trump took office, Democrats have picked up on average 16 points.  Including in Red districts.  They’ve even flipped some Red districts.  We saw the continued effect of this in the recent November 4 elections.  Not only were the New Jersey and Virginia governor races landslide blowouts of about 15 point each, but in the Virginia House of Delegates (which has been split evenly 51-49 for Democrats), Democrats flipped 13 MAGOP seats!  And now hold a 64-36 advantage.

In a perfect world for MAGOPs, mid-census gerrymandering, as I mentioned, is expected to pick up around 10 seats in Texas and a few other Red states, off-set by losing five seats in California. However, as I wrote here back in July (3-1/2 months ago…), the MAGOP is actually at risk of losing seats. The short version of the article is that to gerrymander, you take voters away from Safe Seats (which makes them “Leans Red”) and move them to Blue districts, making them “Leans Red”).  The problem for MAGOPs here is that a Leans Red district is one in which you have around a 5-8 point advantage.  But given that Democrats have been picking up, as noted, 16 points on average in Special Elections, that means all these now “Leans Red” districts are now at serious risk.  Including all those districts that once were Safe Red.  There’s even a political term for this – dummymandering.  And I suspect it’s one of the reasons why a few Red states (most recently Kansas last week) have announced that they will not be gerrymandering.
 
Trump's approval is mostly hovering around 37%, as I write this.  A Newsweek article noted that "Presidents with approval ratings below 50 percent tend to see even larger losses. On average, they have lost about 37 House seats, according to Gallup."  Trump’s approval is much closer to 30% than it is to 50%.
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It's not just that Trump has an approval that most polls have around 37% -- after only nine months in his term.  It’s that it’s been going downward regularly.  And there’s no reason to think it’s going to get better because a) he’s surrounded by unqualified incompetents who not only can’t help him, but are who caused many of the problems.  (Who’s going to help Trump?  Kash Patel, Pam Bondi, Robert Kennedy Junior, Kristi Noem, Budget Director Russell Vought (the architect of Project 2025), FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, Stephen Miller??)  And b) Trump has dementia, which is degenerative, so he is going to get worse.  And he’s going to be 80 years old next June, and won’t be getting younger.  Reality doesn’t work that way.  Just last week, with two days, there was video of Trump falling asleep during the day.  Trump’s approval on specific issues is so low that he’s even hit lower approval for demolishing the East Week of the White House. 
 
And that’s before he began promoting his golden-marble bathroom and held his “Great Gatsby” party celebrating hedonism – during inflation, high prices and a government shutdown people 40 million Americans might be losing their SNAP food subsidies.  And doesn’t include the anger of Trump’s own base at his refusal to release the Epstein files that he promised he’d do – angry because he made the base believe it should be angry.  And they now see him and Speaker Mike Johnson and most other MAGOPs in Congress blocking it all, making them think Trump is involved.
 
When you have a high approval, perhaps around 60%, you can get away with a few screw-ups, because people give you the benefit of the doubt.  When your starting point is 37%, a screw-up confirms to people why they don’t approve of you, and you’re only at 37%.
 
In 1932, in the middle of the Great Depression, Herbert Hoover lost to FDR in one of the biggest landslides in U.S. history.  Yet even at that massive unpopularity, Hoover got 40% of the vote!  Trump is at 37% approval.  As much as many might think it should be lower, it’s actually disastrous.  Keep Hoover in mind if ever you think Trump should be at just 30%.  (And who knows?  He might get there…)
 
Polls also show that the public overwhelmingly doesn’t approve of Trump’s handling of all major issues.  Even his signature issues of the economy and immigration are underwater. 

Though Trump’s approval is at 37%, a new poll just came out showing a very important Trump base of Latino/Hispanic voters (who helped him get elected) is now a microscopic 25% approval!!.
 
Polls show the public overwhelmingly hated the Republican budget bill.  In fact, they hated it so much that MAGOPs and even Trump stopped calling it the “Big Beautiful Bill.”

Polls show, too, that the public overwhelmingly blames Republicans for the government shutdown more than they blame Democrats, by 10-15 points.  And this is before the impact of losing SNAP benefits and seeing their access to healthcare blocked and premiums skyrocket.

There are around 18 districts that have MAGOP representatives in Congress, but actually voted Democratic for President Biden in 2024.  Given that 16-point average pickup in Special Elections, all 18 of these MAGOPs representatives are ripe for being flipped.
 
A few weeks ago, I wrote about a recent poll that shows Independents (who tend to be the group that decides close elections) are against Trump by a stunning 56-10%!!

A core part of the Republican base loves Trump with a near-religious devotions and vote for him with a fevered passion.  But they really don’t care much about politics and tend not to follow it, it’s only Trump they love and come to the polls for.  But Trump isn’t on the ballot in the Mid-Terms.  So, if even 10% of that group doesn’t vote, it’s a terrible loss for MAGOPs.  (And who knows, it could be more, which would be catastrophic.  And yes, while that’s a “could be,” even if that doesn’t happen, which history shows is unlikely, it can only improve by 10 points, but can potentially go down by 90.)  I’ve been writing about this for a long time, and finally I’ve begun to hear analysts bring this up.  Even Trump himself pointed to it in a tweet after last Tuesday’s election blowout.

Fewer people vote in Mid-Terms, it’s generally the most motivated who goes to the polls.  And polls show Democrats are furious, angry, and heavily-motivated to vote far more than Republicans are motivated in the Mid-Terms – with 44% of Democrats motivated to vote, but only 22% of MAGOPs.  Which is all the more critical without Trump on the ballot.  And we saw this motivation in Tuesday’s election in all races.  But most notably in California – where in an off-year election, with only one contest to vote about on the ballot…and that one contest wasn’t even just a person but a convoluted issue on gerrymandering…eight million people voted.

Inflation, higher prices and job loss are bad and likely to get worse because the impact of tariffs haven’t even kicked in yet.  In fact, job loss is so bad that the last two months that have been reported had negative job loss – after 48 consecutive months of job gains during President Biden’s administration.  And it’s likely even worse, because Trump fired the Director of Bureau and Labor Statistics after the last jobs report…and the White House hasn’t issued a new jobs report the past two months.  Furthermore, the last inflation report showed inflation going up – not as much as feared, but still up.  And the White House refused to release a new inflation report last month.

People actually care about healthcare, and Trump put a maniac in charge of it.  Most recently, after suggesting that pregnant women not take Tylenol, Robert Kennedy Junior acknowledged that he didn’t have evidence to back it up.  Polls show that most people understand the importance and efficacy of vaccinations – and see that Kennedy Junior and Trump are trying to argue against them.  This includes cutbacks to the department that deals with epidemics, all the while there is the first outbreak of measles in decades, during which two children died.
 
Polls show that the public hates the military being stationed in cities.  Worse, they see the violence used against American citizens, mothers, grandmothers, children, gardeners – not remotely the worst of the worst. They see a priest being pepperballed in the head.  Just last week, they saw the story of daycare teacher being arrested and dragged out of her school in front of the little children.  And this is something that Trump and Kristi Noem say will be expanded.

As I wrote in an article here back in June (4-1/2 months ago…), “In the past 84 years, the party in control of the White House has lost seats in the House (and usually in the Senate, as well) in every off-year election, but just two.”  And one of those two was when Republicans were about to impeach President Clinton, and his approval skyrocketed.  And the other was after 9/11 and the Iraq War started, and W. Bush was riding a peak of popularity.  Worse for MAGOPs, as if 84 years of history isn’t bad enough, is that those two exceptions are also the only two times when a president’s approval at the Mid-Terms was in the “60%.”  Further, in all other Mid-Term elections, approval for all the presidents in office at the time were generally in the upper-40 to mid-50%).  To repeat, Trump’s approval is already down to 37%.
                                                                             
It’s hard to imagine that most people (whatever their reasons) feel “good” about the direction of the country right now—and polls show this to be true -- and that negatively impacts the party in power.  And one party controls the White House, Senate and House.
 
Again, I know I’m not an expert, and this is all a guess.  But those are the reasons behind the guess.  And not merely subjective opinions for the reasons, but black-and-white reasons based on fact.  And while I know I could be wrong -- for me to be wrong requires reasons why all those points are wrong.  “I don’t agree” or “I don’t trust Trump and MAGOPs, they could do something” or “I don’t trust the Supreme Court” are entirely valid opinions – they just aren’t convincing arguments.

Again, I absolutely could be wrong.  And as I said, this is all “I hope.”  But…I think I’m right.  For all these reasons.

And one other reason I think there will be a huge Blue Wave:  because it appears that MAGOPs think this is the case, as well.  Because MAGOPs are showing how scared they are.  As I wrote here the day before, the presence of MAGOP officials on social media the past months has come across so relentless and panicked – on subjects (like impeaching a judge and who the mayor of New York is) that have nothing to do with issues that Americans say they care about that you can almost see the sweat dripping out of you computer monitor.  What it shows, too, is that they have nothing to say about those issues Americans say they do care about.  Avoiding saying anything since they see Trump’s polling on those issues so disastrous.  Which is the reason MAGOP leaders telling the rank-and-file not to hold Town Halls.
 
If you have a great foundation of policies and the economy is great and you passed what you think is a “big beautiful” budget bill, you run loudly on all that.  You don’t tell your members not to hold Town Halls.  You don’t try to gerrymander your states in between censuses.  And you don’t try to make your big issues the mayor of New York, impeaching a judge and trying to convince the public (as Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway did on Fox) that it’s the left that is supposedly “panicking” because of the jeans ads with Sydney Sweeney!!  (Yes, really.)  You run on your issues that are substantive because you know Americans love them for making their lives better.
 
A month ago, I sent an early version of this article to highly-accomplished friend in academia and economics.  His response was pithy: “Bold prediction.”

Yes, it’s a bold prediction.  And as all such predictions end, when others say, “Well…I hope you’re right” – the reality is that I hope I’m right, too. 

But those are the specific, detailed reasons I think I am.