The Winston Group’s David Winston writes in today’s Roll Call about the difficulty of predicting wave elections for either party.
Yes, we’ve seen a string of GOP losses in special elections, with the media contrasting the winning percentages against President Donald Trump’s performance in 2024.
But political waves are more complicated than that.
Republicans learned that the hard way in 2022. In that election, the GOP had their best party ID advantage (+3) in the history of exit polling, yet picked up only nine seats, well under the 20-35 predicted by many — a cautionary tale for confident Democrats like Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who has already declared, “Democrats are definitely going to take back control of the House of Representatives.”
He could well be right, but will it be a wave or another squeaker election for his party? Democrats experienced a similar frustration after high hopes for 2020. Despite winning the White House, they lost 12 seats in the House — far less than the expected 10- to 18-seat pickup.
Read the full piece here.
