The Blue Wave

The 2018 Midterms and What They Mean for the 2020 Elections

Edited by Larry Sabato, Kyle Kondik

Publication date:

07 June 2019

Length of book:

302 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

ISBN-13: 9781538125267

Early results on election night suggested that Democrats had failed to make significant gains in the 2018 midterms. After all the votes were counted, a blue wave crashed on American electoral politics as Democrats won the House the Representatives and made significant gains at the state and local levels.

In this book, Larry Sabato and Kyle Kondik bring together respected journalists and academics from across the political spectrum to examine every facet of the 2018 election, and what its outcome portends for our national politics and the coming 2020 presidential election. In frank, accessible prose, each author offers insight that goes beyond the headlines, and dives into the underlying forces and shifts that drove the election from its earliest developments to its eventual conclusion, long after the polls closed.

Contributions by Alan I. Abramowitz, Matt Barreto, David Byler, Rhodes Cook, James Hohmann, Theodore Johnson, Kyle Kondik, Albert Morales, Diana Owen, Madelaine Pisani, Joshua T. Putnam, Larry Sabato, Gary Segura, Emily C. Singer, Sean Trende, Michael Toner, and Karen Trainer.

1. The Blue Wave: Trump at Midterm, Larry J. Sabato

2. The Trump Effect: The 2018 Midterm Election as a Referendum on a Polarizing President, Alan I. Abramowitz

3. The Primaries of 2018: Democrats Shine in the Era of Trump, Rhodes Cook

4. Humpty-Dumpty’s Fall: How Trump’s Winning Presidential Coalition Broke Down in 2018, David Byler

5. The House: Where the BlueWave Hit the Hardest, Kyle Kondik

6. How Republicans Picked up Senate Seats during a Blue Wave, James Hohmann

7. The Governors: Democratic Wave Falls Short of a Wipeout, Madelaine Pisani

8. The Money Wars: Emerging Campaign Finance Trends and Their Impact on 2018 and Beyond, Michael E. Toner and Karen E. Trainer

9. Women Rule: 2018 Midterms Bring Surge of Women to Congress, Emily C. Singer

10. Hindsight in 2020: Black Voting Behavior and the Next Presidential Election, Theodore R. Johnson

11. The Brown Tide and the Blue Wave in 2018, Matt Barreto,

Gary Segura, and Albert Morales

12. Presidential Media and the Midterm Elections, Diana Owen

13. Foresight in 2020: New Features of the Democratic Delegate Selection Rules, Joshua T. Putnam

14. Was 2018 a Wave Election? Sean Trende

Index

About the Contributors

It is unusual for a collection of academic essays to flow as though written by a single author or pair of authors. The Blue Wave, edited by Larry Sabato and Kyle Kondik, does so. Any political scientist prepping courses on elections for next year, media pundits wanting to sound more knowledgeable, or political consultants seeking to give clients good advice must read this book. Its initial chapters provide an excellent, detailed retelling of the 2018 election. It moves on to “slice and dice” the role of different demographic constituencies in the outcome of the election. Lastly, the book does two things. First, it sets up how, if what was observed as widespread group behavior continues through 2020, the 2020 presidential election may be impacted. Second, it defines a wave election while simultaneously determining whether the 2018 election was a wave. Wave or not, the 2018 election was certainly significant, and Sabato and Kondik have assembled knowledgeable experts who write well and detail the election in a compelling way.

Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.