Was it a "Blue Wave"? Well, sorta. I definitely think it is embarrassing to see Conservatives try to argue that it was somehow a Republican success, let alone when some predicted a "Red Wave".
To be straight-forward, here are the results:
In the House, Democrats picked up 37 seats, with a few left to be called. If Democrats win recounts where they are currently ahead, and Republicans win those where they are currently ahead, Democrats will pick up 38 seats.
In the Senate, Republicans have picked up two seats.
For governors, Democrats have picked up seven seats.
In state legislatures, Democrats gained control of six.
Importantly for Democrats, their gains spanned from New York and California as expected, to Kansas, Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin, Maine, Nevada (twice), Iowa, and Arizona. All important competitive (or even Red) states.
Key states that Republicans gained in include Florida and Missouri.
This may not have been the election Democrats wanted in terms of the Senate - they struggled to hold Red-state seats in North Dakota, Indiana, and Missouri - but Republicans couldn't afford to have another election like this in 2020, let alone a worse loss.
Some Republicans try to spin this as a win because the Senate is key to judicial (read: Supreme Court) appointments. Although this is true, the trade off of nearly 40 House Seats, seven governors, and six state legislatures simply isn't worth that cost. Even worse for Republicans, this was the friendliest Senate map they get out of the three - consisting overwhelmingly of Red States. 2020, and especially 2022 will be much harsher for them. With higher turnout for the 2020 Presidental election, I would expect them to lose seats, and control, in 2020. 21 of the 33 seats up in 2020 are held by Republicans, including in Blue-leaning states like Colorado and Maine, and competitive states like Arizona (where Democrats just won a senate seat) Iowa, North Carolina, and Maine. Even Texas may be competitive if O'Rourke runs again, as he lost a close election this year.
Although 2018 was not quite the Democratic Blue Wave that some predicted, it would be absurd to paint it as a Republican win, as the Republican party would be decimated by another election like this. The strongest argument the right has is that these losses were not as bad as some incumbent Presidents have suffered after beginning their first term. However, I think that is mostly true due to the Republican-friendly Senate map.
The results were nearly exactly what polls predicted - in fact FiveThirtyEight's prediction of 38 House seats flipping to Democrats appears to have been exactly right.
I think that the Right needs to realize, or at least those Conservatives who did not see this coming, that they too are capable of getting stuck in a bubble. Liberals/the Left had that problem in 2016, but those Conservatives like Sargon of Akkad who predicted a Red-Wave or insignificant Democratic gains need to reexamine how they were so mislead. Ultimately, with many of them cutting themselves off from the Left, and unknowingly from most Americans, they were left in a bubble of people ready to back Trump to own the libs. That is not how most of the country feels, and that would have been obvious if they had left that bubble. When your party is in charge, whether you are Left or Right, it is easy to get sucked into the bubble.
