Five Thirty-Eight Editor-In-Chief Nate Silver crunched the numbers and discovered that Democrats' victory in the midterms is much bigger than conventional wisdom suggests.
Nationwide, Democratic U.S. House candidates raked in more than 60 million votes, which Silver notes is comparable to what recent Republican presidential candidates have gained nationwide.
Silver's point: that just doesn't happen.
"Trump got 63m votes, Romney 61m, McCain 60m," Silver tweeted Monday. "Dem votes for the House this year should be very close to that range."
This is unprecedented, according to Silver's analysis.
"There's not any precedent for an opposition party coming this close to matching the president's vote total from 2 years earlier," Silver explained. "The closest to an exception was when Democratic House candidates in 1970 got 92% of Nixon's vote total from 1968."
Silver argues these astounding numbers are indicative of the deep unpopularity of President Donald Trump. The other factors fueling Democrats' momentum, Silver believes, are: "1) Trump was elected despite losing the popular vote; 2) D's won by a big margin this year and 3) Turnout was VERY high."
Silver also said the media have yet to accept how low Trump's poll numbers are, again emphasizing that Democrats got more than 15 million more votes in 2018 than Republicans did when they swept the 2010 midterm elections.
Trump is less popular today than President Barack Obama was at the same point in his first term.
But unlike Obama, Trump was never popular to begin with.
People who disapprove of Trump are hopeful that the trend continues into 2020, when the presidency, the entire U.S. House, and 33 Senate seats are up for grabs.
Some, however, think that Trump's illusions about his own popularity and competence will only continue to help Democrats.
As Silver pointed out, Republicans got clobbered in California, and Trump deserves credit.
In conservative Orange County, for example, Democrats claimed victory in all seven Congressional races. So far, Democrats have picked up a total of 38 U.S House seats.
Others believe the media is still too friendly to Trump, and that the normalization of his extreme rhetoric is dangerous.
Trump could be headed for a tough fight in 2020.
The blue wave was very real.
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