A Blue Wave? No.

The left keeps talking about a Blue Wave taking out the GOP and giving them the House. I simply don’t buy it. In fact, all the evidence I see suggests an election with little change. Consider this.

Trump’s approval rating has been sitting at 48% for weeks now, through any number of scandals. The left points to this as proof that Trump is below 50%, but at the same time, this is somewhere around 7% higher than it was when he won. Moreover, it suggests a hardening of support, not a lessening of support.

Next, a CBS pollster, which means he’s no friend of conservatism, worries that the Democrats will not win the House. He notes that the level of support is remarkably solid/unchanged in the races they look at. What’s more, he notes that the Democratic strategy relies on them turning out two groups who historically haven’t voted in midterms: young women and youths. GOP support, older whites, is solid and intends to turn out.

Further, on the turnout point, I’ve observed before that while the Democrats are sort of winning the turnout numbers in the primaries, (1) there are reasons for this, and (2) they have yet to turn out anything more than average turnout. In other words, it’s not like they normally turn out Y-thousand people but this time turned out 1.5Y-thousand people. To the contrary, in most cases, they didn’t even turn out anywhere near their recent record turnouts. So the enthusiasm isn’t there, nor is there evidence of new voters appearing.

In terms of the reasons Democratic numbers are up in the primary, consider that Democratic primaries tend to be disputed whereas Republican incumbents don’t need to turn out to win. Also, the Democrats are going through a civil war, with progressives/socialists versus “moderates.” So again, they have more reason to turn out in the primaries... but this does NOT carry over into the general election.

On the idea of attracting women, there are a couple problems:

(1) Single women don’t turn out as well as other groups.

(2) Liberal women are currently largely demoralized by the collapse of all these supposed women’s movements. The Women’s Anti-Trump March died the moment they dropped their signs and headed to Starbucks. The #metoo Movement (which never left Hollywood) has imploded into a total route with their leaders now engaging in open hypocrisy and turning on each other, and all the progress feminists had made being undone by due process. In fact, almost every man who faced any punishment is essentially back in business. The “Year of the Woman” remains a dud – the only “women” who matter are Pelosi, Warren, Waters and Hillary, a group of ancient, out-of-touch, dementia ridden losers. Even the cute, inspiring socialist chick turned out to be a moron whose politics are the kiss of death. There isn’t even a platform to draw women in.

(3) Add to this that the Religious Right has been strangely silent and Trump has stopped saying sexist things, and there just isn’t a motivator for young, single women to turn out.

(4) Also, despite talk of women turning against Trump, the gender gap doesn’t support this. The Washington Post poll has a gender gap of 10%. This is supposed to be evidence that Trump is unusually bad with women. But Reagan’s gender gap was 6%, Bush Sr. gender gap was 15%. W Bush’s gap was 7%. Moreover, if we believe the polls, Trump’s gap against Hillary was supposed to be 18% in 2016, but really turned out to be 12%. So a 10% gap means he’s improved and is just about the same as Reagan and W Bush. (Romney was 11%.) Keep in mind too, all of this is after the full-court press to create a women’s movement and make it unacceptable for women to support him.

On the idea of attracting youth voters, there are a couple problems with that too:

(1) Youth never vote.

(2) Youth turnout has been disappointing throughout the primaries.

(3) I’ve been watching groups like these Florida kids and David Hogg. He’s a real turd who will turn off a lot more people than he wins over. But even more importantly, despite all the good wishes the left could offer and a professional team that rivals any campaign, these kids have managed nothing. They have turned out no one. What’s more, they aren’t even trying to help the Democrats. Hogg and the others are running around arguing for some sort of youth uprising to get rid of “old ass parents” and the such. Beyond this, there is no issue to turn out youths. They didn’t even turn out to support the socialist chick... they’ve all but abandoned Bernie too because he’s old, rich and too timid.

The youth “movement” is more of a young communist movement and it has failed to show any evidence whatsoever that it’s inspired any youth to turn out.

What’s more, the issues the left is running on are failing to excite anyone: a $15 minimum wage does not attract low-level professionals, it offends them... proponents of Medicare for all have been getting whacked in the primaries and need to explain the $32 trillion cost... “we can put a woman in charge” didn’t work for Hillary, and won’t work when there is no woman to rally around... Trump’s environmental policies “aren’t as bad as I expected” (an Al Gore quote) doesn’t scare people... peace with North Korea kind of neuters the “he’s dangerous” line... his Supreme Court pick seems really normal. And so on. None of this turns out new people.

Add all this up and I see no evidence of a Blue Wave. The Democrats haven’t increased their turnout beyond normal levels. Their plan requires them to turn out people who are politically lazy, demoralized by the failure of their naive idealism, and generally want others to “do something” for them. Add in that Trump’s support seems solid and seems to grow stronger as the left attacks. Finally, incumbents have huge advantages, including gerrymandering. All that suggests there's just no blue wave coming.

Thoughts?