The blue wave may
be bluer than the prognosticators who study the election polls, ads, and cash
flows think. I’ve studied some of their on-going accounts during the last few weeks
and months. The election is not just about which party’s “base” is more “energized”
and likely to turn out. Here is what the predictions may not have taken into
account.
Certain polls
have already found an uptick in the likely voter count among millennials, which
includes first-time voters. Though not as a rule highly politicized, young
people are nevertheless a somewhat bluer constituency. If the uptick is being
undercounted, the actual vote will add to the blue wave.
The same applies
to non-white voters. If the likely vote in these blue constituencies was undercounted
or proved harder to count in the polls, the actual vote at the polls will be bluer than predicted. This, I suspect, may be
especially true of the Native American vote.
Assume for a
moment the polls took tally of a just proportion of female voters. Are they
more likely, regardless of party, to vote for a female candidate? especially at
this point in cultural time? If so, more blue votes, just because there are
more female Democratic candidates. A lot
more.
Normally, in a given
race, undecided independent votes tend to fall to either party in the same
proportion as the overall vote. Thus they cancel each other out; it’s as if
they had not voted at all, and left the election to the committed partisan voters.
Will they really happen this year? Which party will the non-partisan voter find
less toxic? If non-partisan voters just want a change, other things being
equal, a blue vote is the clearer path.
If all these things are true – about the
young vote, the non-white vote, the female vote, and the independent vote –
then I say the blue wave in the House will be more than 40 seats. And the Democrats
will hold all the toss-up seats in the Senate. And take Texas, or Tennessee, or
maybe even North Dakota, giving them a majority in the Senate. Even if only some of these things are true, the blue
wave may still be bluer than the pundits think.
