COMMENTARY
Hey Democrats! Don’t Listen to Republicans – This Is a Big Blue Wave – Princeton Scientist Explains Why

For those who were watching Tuesday night started out looking like the way the 2016 election ended. It was a nail-biter for sure, but around 10 PM ET Democratic candidates broke through and soon enough, first Fox News then MSNBC and NBC News projected the Democrats would take the House.
CNN’s Jake Tapper early on said, “this was not a blue wave.”
The White House, naturally, also insisted there was no “blue wave.”
That’s false.
Princeton scientist Dr. Sam Wang, who founded and heads the Princeton Election Consortium, says that based on the number of Democratic votes, this was definitely a blue wave, or, as he puts it, a “popular wave.”
Dr. Wang notes that the last five elections that were called “waves,” ranged from margins of +5.7% to +10.6%.
And he says, based on The New York Times’ vote tallies of +9.2%, this is a wave.
The NYT currently projects a national popular-vote margin of D+9.2%. The largest popular margin since 2008, larger than waves of 1994, 2006, 2010, 2014.
1994: R+7.1%
2006: D+8.0%
2008: D+10.6%
2010: R+7.2%
2014: R+5.7%By historical standards, this a popular wave. pic.twitter.com/4hw71hieVN
— Sam Wang (@SamWangPhD) November 7, 2018
The number of seats Democrats will gain over Republicans in the House right now is not known, but +9.2% is a huge margin.
(As of this writing the Times model shows Democrats +8.1%, still huge.)
Yes, this was a blue wave – and Democrats would have won even more seats had Republicans not gerrymandered the maps so much.
Don’t let Republicans – or anyone else – tell you differently.
Others are starting to catch on:
This tells you two things: 1. Huge national movement in response to Trump 2. Republicans have gerrymandered the hell out of American democracy https://t.co/h01wXhiq5i
— Dan Pfeiffer (@danpfeiffer) November 7, 2018
Blue Fucking Wave in progress. https://t.co/BErH8pLHw5
— Bob Cesca (@bobcesca_go) November 7, 2018
I know many are wringing their hands about the alleged lack of a blue wave, but the results so far are about what we expected. 30 seats and flipping control in the House qualifies as a wave to me. The Senate map is holding for the GOP.
— Stuart Rothenberg (@StuPolitics) November 7, 2018
No here is the smartest take: this is a massive blue wave with a % margin larger than the waves of 1994, 2006, 2010, 2014. But gerrymandering! https://t.co/9mx7fuXlbG
— Topher Spiro (@TopherSpiro) November 7, 2018
Image by Steve Lacy via Flickr and a CC license
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