FiveThirtyEight: Yes, It Was A Blue Wav | FiveThirtyEight: "natesilver (Nate Silver, editor in chief): The arguments that it ISN’T a blue wave are dumb. Can we end the chat now and get lunch?...
...sarahf: Haha, no. We’re here to tell readers why it’s dumb — although Nathaniel did do a pretty good job of convincing me.
nrakich: People seem to be defining “blue wave” as, “Did Democrats outperform expectations?” They’re forgetting that expectations were already for a blue wave.
natesilver: What is the argument that it isn’t a blue wave? That Democrats didn’t win the Senate?
nrakich: Democrats largely matched expectations in the House but fell a little bit short of them in the Senate and governor races....
natesilver: I think they’re arguing it’s not a wave because (1) the “split decision” narrative is very attractive if you’re of a both-sides mentality, (2) it takes a little bit of work to figure out why Democrats didn’t win the Senate (i.e., you have to look at the fact that the contests were all held in really red states), (3) Democratic gains are larger than they looked like they’d be at say 10:30 p.m. on election night, when these narratives were established.
nrakich: I understand why Democrats are disappointed, Clare. They lost the Senate! You’d rather win than lose! But we should educate them that a loss of two, maybe one, seats in the Senate was actually a remarkable feat for Democrats in this Senate map.... Democrats were so overexposed that, in a different environment, Republicans could have taken 60 seats in the Senate and made it really hard for Democrats to take back the Senate in the next decade or more....
#shouldread
