BLUF: This will be a blue wave that will give Democrats control of the US House of Representatives and the US Senate. The wave in the House will be at least a 20 seat change and give Democrats something like a 235-200 majority, and Democrats will control the Senate 53-47. Closer to home, Shannon Taylor will not flip VA CD01.

I can list a lot of reasons why I think this will happen.

• Young voters who showed up for Trump and other Republicans in 2024 will defect because they did not get the fundamental change – an end to forever wars and a focus on affordability – the voted for. The  capitalist system writ large does not work for them and they figure “might as well break it.” .
• Young voters also want an end to genocide in Gaza. Social media and the internet ensure that everyone sees video of children being killed there whether they want to or not. This will cause young (and some older) Americans to seek the fundamental change they want from candidates who will promise to stop this genocide. 
• Culture war rhetoric about trans kids and gay marriage no longer resonate with rural Americans while rising fuel prices and tariffs destroy their farms and the foreign markets for their produce. 
• Voters are sick of watching billionaires push artificial intelligence from private planes and yachts while AI takes their jobs and housing, fuel, and grocery prices rise rapidly. 
• Even though wages are rising with prices, people don’t feel this because right to work and at will employment laws make white collar workers anxious about their financial futures. News reports of layoffs have an impact.
• Health care costs are out of control and voters know whom to blame: health insurance companies and politicians who argue that if you can’t afford it you don’t deserve it. Most voters work very hard and are beginning to become pissed at Republicans who tell them to just work harder. The (correct) feeling that the system is rigged against regular workers is gaining traction. $225B in medical debt has begun to hit Republican voters and it matters.
• Screaming about who loves and who hates America doesn’t resonate as well during hard times. Voters, especially young voters, don’t have many reasons to love a country that leaves them behind while making them feel like it’s their fault after they did all the right things.
• Americans want criminal immigrants deported but despise the heavy-handed Gestapo style tactics ICE uses. Watching federal agents who often refuse to identify themselves and do not wear uniforms randomly round up people because they have brown skin leaves a bad taste in their mouths. It doesn’t help that they shoot or assault citizens and then tell us that we won’t have a problem if we just comply.
• Traditional GOP voters in rural areas, especially farmers, have been hit hard by higher fuel prices (especially diesel) and by tariffs that killed foreign markets for crops like soybeans. Rural America does not have diverse economies, and when agriculture dies the small towns where they do business struggle.
• Democrats have effectively tied affordability to Trump’s obvious corruption and higher prices to Trump tariff and war policies.

There’s a lot more. What Corey Doctorow calls “enshittification” of everything. Data centers popping up everywhere. Everyone everywhere trying to nickel and dime us wherever we turn (tip jars at fast food restaurants and service fees for everything).

US Senate Elections

Control of the US Senate by Democrats will not enable passing legislation, since Trump will probably veto anything a Democratic Congress passes. But it does mean Democrats will control approval of judicial and cabinet nominees and block further MAGAfication of the Federal bench. If Dems take the Senate, expect at least one (Alito) and probably two (Alito and Thomas) retirements so Trump can push through younger justices in the lame duck Senate. In this case, even a Roberts retirement would not shock me. All three are over 70 years old and would be at least 80 in 2035 (Thomas would be 88). The GOP would love to entrench younger staunch conservatives in the SCOTUS before a potential two-term Democratic Presidency starts in 2029 and that won’t happen if Dems take the Senate this week.

Democratic Holds

Jon Ossoff wins reelection. He’ll be a front-runner for the Democratic nomination in 2028.

Abdul El Sayed wins in Michigan in a squeaker. Democrats endorsing Rogers will actually help him by highlighting his anti-establishment positions. 

Peggy Flanagan holds Minnesota.

Democratic Flips

Roy Cooper wins North Carolina. Popular former Governor wins state-wide again.

Sherrod Brown wins Ohio. He’s well known and Ramaswamy tanked GOP chances with that disgusting ad.

James Talarico wins in Texas. Ken Paxton is just a loathsome human being and voters notice that. Watch for lots of GOP Governor voters who leave Paxton off their ballots.

Josh Turek wins Iowa. Yes, I am predicting this. Farmers and diesel prices.

Adam Hamilton wins in Kansas. Yes, I am also predicting this. Hamilton is a charismatic megachurch pastor, and diesel prices have hit Kansas farmers especially hard.

Other Senate Predictions

Annie Andrews has a fighting chance in South Carolina because Darline Graham is an awful candidate and more than 25% of voters in the state are black. The state will return to the norm in 2028.

Mississippi and Louisiana will be far closer than expected. Almost a third of voters in both states are black, and they noticed efforts to gut the Voting Rights and Civil Rights Acts. They will show up in numbers and give Republicans in the South a wake-up call. These two states may not return to the norm.

House Elections

The key reason why retaking the House matters is corruption. A Democratic Congress can investigate the massive amount of corruption we’ve seen on Trump’s watch. This includes crypto scams, possible pay to play pardons, pay for play foreign policy, emoluments, and other graft on the part of Trump, his family, and some GOP officials. A Dem House would also likely impeach several Cabinet members including Hegseth (extra-judicial killings in the Caribbean), and RFK, Jr. (role in enabling disease outbreaks), Blanche (weaponization of the Justice Department) as well as Trump himself. 

Some would argue that this is a waste of time, but I would argue that in the current environment it makes sense to highlight the high crimes and misdemeanors Republican officials have committed, whether or not the Senate would convict. And I’m not convinced that conviction and removal from office isn’t possible, especially in the Hegseth case. There’s a reason he’s angling to get appointed to the Senate in Tennessee after Blackburn wins the Governor seat there.

Cook Political Report rates 18 House seats as likely Democratic, and 15 of these are currently held by Republicans. Cook rates another 18 as toss ups, and 14 of these are currently held by Republicans. On the other side, Cook rates 18 as lean Republican with only 3 of these now in Democrats’ hands. If both sides hold all the leans and split the toss-ups evenly, Democrats pick up 15 seats. I think depressed Republican turnout and a motivated Democratic voter base (especially blacks and Hispanics) will make it worse than this. Democrats pick up between 20 and 25 seats. This is a conservative estimate.

In Virginia, I think Shannon Taylor falls just short of flipping the First Congressional District. Hanover and other counties in this District have always been Tea Party hotbeds (Hanover County once had the highest percentage of Tea Pary members in any US county). Many Republicans who voted for Trump to get change and got disappointed will defect or stay home, but these folks will not abandon Trump and they will show up. 

I’m also skeptical that her prosecutor-focused campaign resonated with new voters enough to get her over the hump. She did not clearly state positions on Medicare for All, data centers, and genocide in Gaza that younger voters want to hear about. Instead, she played it safe and did little to separate herself from establishment Democrats that many people, including me, think are part of the problem. 

Campaign consultants think a centrist campaign is the right call in the First, and the higher level of financial support the Party provided this cycle will make a difference. This could be right given the electorate she faced in the District, but we’ve seen Progressive campaigns with little funding (Herb Jones and Qasim Rashid) do as well as more establishment campaigns with better funding (Leslie Mehta). 

Local tracking suggests her final ad spending total at $15M compared to Wittman’s $8.5M, so I expect her to move the needle and come within a point or two, but I don’t believe she ran the kind of campaign needed to get over the top. If Taylor falls short, we’ll get an interesting case for analysis of campaign strategy and money in politics. 

Down Ballot

We have no down ballot races in Virginia today except three Constitutional Amendments (Reproductive Rights, Gay Marriage Rights, and Restoration of Felons’ Rights, and all three will pass) so we don’t think about this much.

But other States are electing Governors, legislatures, and other statewide offices. Democrats could win a majority of Governor seats for the first time in 16 years. They’re also set to end trifecta control of state governments across the country and end supermajorities in a few. This is non-trivial, since these officials control legislation and elections at the State level. 

By tomorrow morning, we’ll know more about how high this blue wave will crest. In 2018, Democrats flipped 40 seats in the House. It could be that bad or worse this time.