For weeks, cracks have been emerging in Democratic predictions of a “blue wave.” While discussing the California primary election results early Wednesday morning, host Steve Kornacki, Voto Latino’s Maria Teresa Kumar, The Root’s Jason Johnson, and Commentary’s John Podhoretz discussed concrete evidence from the primary results that undermines predictions of a November Republican rout.
Contrasting results from previous elections with the California primaries, Kumar observed: “A lot of the stuff that is coming in from the base from the Republican Party, they are just as energized as we had seen as previously within the Democratic Party.” She continued with her assessment: “You should be expecting a much bigger wave in some of these really close congressional directs that are held by Republicans, and you're just not seeing that.”
Podhoretz was in agreement and felt that the result “jives with information over the past month to suggest that all sorts of -- that things are sort of closing.” Not only are levels of enthusiasm converging, but so too are results from the generic ballot.
As for his colleagues’ predictions of a “blue wave,” Podhoretz explained that “everybody sort of assumed that the level of Democratic enthusiasm, wild over-enthusiasm compared to Republicans in 2017, was going to carry through to 2018.” When push came to shove, however, and the results rolled in, Podhoretz had to admit that “so far we don't see that much evidence of that” overwhelming Democratic enthusiasm.
If current trends continue and polls continue to converge, MSNBC’s analysis may just be proven correct that the “blue wave” became the “blue bust” in November.
