The Vote Count has Ended, Analysis

It's been a while since I've posted, I apologize for that. But the 2018 midterms are now completely over. My last post was mostly correct at predicting the final outcomes of the then undecided races. Democrats ended up winning all of the districts they held leads in (Though UT-4 was in doubt for some time) and took ME-2 thanks to Ranked Choice Voting. Both of the California seats I mentioned flipped, but the surprise that no one saw coming was CA-21 also flipping. Every single network had called the race for Republican Incumbent David Valadao, has he had a comfy 8 point advantage on Election Night, but a while afterwards it became clear that the late votes were making the race much closer, resulting in the upset win of Democrat TJ Cox in a seat most considered Likely Republican. The late results also left Devin Nunes (CA-22) and Duncan Hunter (CA-50) with much smaller winning margins. TJ Cox's win would make my +40 prediction spot on, though considering NC-9, I can't be 100% sure. NC-9 was initially called for Republican Mark Harris but the State Board of Elections refused to certify him over concerns of election fraud. As of this post, the race is still unresolved.

The Senate races went mostly how I said, though Hyde-Smith got into a controversy afterwards that made her race closer than most of us thought the runoff would be at the start. Ned Lamont finally got political power after winning a close race for Governor in Connecticut, and Stacey Abrams fell just short of forcing a runoff in Georgia.

The results were objectively good for Democrats. They picked up 40 seats in the House, 7 in Governorships, over 300 seats in State Legislatures (taking majorities in many and breaking super-majorities in a number more) and won numerous victories through Ballot Measures (Though Republicans have tried to gut a number of them) The only negative was the Senate, but with how terrible the map was, Democrats should be proud of the fact that they held the losses to just two seats. (If Hillary Clinton won in 2016, the results would have been a lot worse for them).

Now for the analysis part. Democrats won the House Popular vote 53.4% to 44.8%, or a margin of 8.6%. This got them 235 seats. For comparison, Republicans narrowly won the House Popular Vote in 2016 49.1% to 48%, or a margin of 1.1%. That got Republicans 241 seats. Democrats accomplished this by getting insane turnout levels for a midterm. While the Republican numbers were also off the charts, it was not enough to keep control of the House. Despite 2018 being a midterm, Democrats only lost 1,048,956 votes from their 2016 total, incredible numbers. For comparison, Republicans lost 7,422,050 votes in 2010 from 2008 (They won 242 House seats that year), and in the last blue wave (2006), Democrats lost 10,630,991 votes from 2004. Republicans lost 12,189,920 votes from 2016, which is very good for the party in power historically (The party in power usually loses over 20 million votes from the last election in waves) but devastating in 2018. Republicans even won more votes in 2018 than in 2010, a year in which they took 63 seats in the House. But the Democratic turnout was too much to overcome. Republicans should be thankful that they didn't perform like history would expect, as their losses would have likely went well past 60.

Overall, turnout was 50.1% in 2018, which is huge. I doubt that we ever get midterm turnout this high again anytime soon, and 2018 will likely go down as one of the most interesting midterm campaigns and elections in history, along with the likes of 1994, 2006, and 2010. Now, on to 2019!