The election -- a warning from an independent

As the election approaches, it's being greeted by an exuberant festival of unhatched-chicken-counting among Democrats.  Posts breathlessly celebrate polls showing likely wins in what are usually red districts or states.  There are, of course, solid reasons for them to be hopeful.  The party not holding the presidency normally gains House seats in midterms, and the Republicans are starting from a tiny majority.  With Trump massively unpopular, a failed war in the Middle East, voters infuriated about food and fuel prices, and the sour aftertaste (for those paying attention) of ICE's abuses and Trump's corruption, it's reasonable to expect a larger-than-typical gain in seats for Democrats.  Even the Senate is not immune to these influences, especially with local factors such as an unusually-bad Republican Senate candidate in Texas.

Yet I'm reminded of the period 2022-2024, after the Dobbs ruling that overturned Roe and put abortion rights at risk nationwide.  For two years, we got story after story about Democrats doing startlingly well in special elections.  The national mood seemed to be turning strongly against Republicans.  This led many bloggers, including me, to anticipate a blue wave in 2024.  We all remember what actually happened.  It wasn't just Harris -- Democrats across-the-board underperformed expectations, which pretty much debunks the popular (among Democrats) claims that racism and sexism explain the result.  My own tentative conclusion is that the Democrats were doomed by voters' demographic concerns which come to the fore in a national election but not in local ones.  But whatever the reason, the outcome was much different from what the left blogosphere expected.

This time, it's mostly polls that are boosting the case for a blue wave.  Yet these days, changes in technology and in people's phone habits are making accurate polling ever more difficult.  Notably, polls during the primaries showed El-Sayed in Michigan and Hong in Wisconsin with huge leads, while the actual result in both cases was very close -- suggesting that such obsessive Israel-bashers do much less well in reality than in polls.  And overall the polling this year is looking pretty odd.  Here is yesterday's map of Senate race polling from Electoral-Vote:

According to this, Democratic candidates are doing better in Texas and Alaska than in Maine and Minnesota.  Republicans are barely ahead in Mississippi and Louisiana.  Kansas, which hasn't elected a Democratic senator since 1932, is leaning slightly Democratic.  All this while most other red states remain as solidly red as usual.  This may represent reality -- for example, the Democrats have unusually strong candidates in Texas and Alaska while the Texas Republican is unusually weak -- but I wouldn't count on it too strongly.

I think I can view the situation more objectively than the political bloggers can because, in a couple of senses, I don't have much of a dog in the partisan fight.  I've never been as fixated on politics as they are, and with the direction much of the left has taken over the last few years, I can no longer really identify with it.  I support whatever candidate or ballot initiative best fits my own position, regardless of party.  For this election, I stand by the priorities I listed last month.  Here in Oregon, I'll be voting for the Democrat for Congress and probably for the Republican for governor.  If the various elections here and across the country don't come out the way I hope, well, politics is far from being the most prominent thing in my life, and it will be a disappointment but not a huge one.  But if 2026 turns out to be another 2024, those who have fully invested themselves in the political fight will risk feeling shocked and devastated.  Again.

Based on historical precedent, the Democrats will almost certainly win the House majority.  Based on current political conditions, it's definitely possible that they'll win it by a large margin, and get the Senate majority too.  But in the interest of their own sanity, I'd strongly advise political bloggers to curb their expectations.  A pleasant surprise on election night is a lot more bearable than an unpleasant one.