Ed Morrissey:
What’s the best metric to determine whether a wave election is coming? The generic Congressional ballot margins in polls certainly can give us an indication, as can presidential approval ratings and polling from different states. Sudden changes in policy direction might be another signal for those paying attention. Chris Cillizza wonders how one even defines a wave election:
By a slightly-more-specific definition, a wave election is dominated by a single national issue and where a party not only makes substantial gains in House, Senate and gubernatorial races but also has candidates win who, in a more neutral national environment, would have no chance to do so. Stu Rothenberg, a Fix friend and political handicapper extraordinaire, offers this handy description:
For me, the “political wave” metaphor evokes the image of a surging ocean wave that is much larger than normal and deposits debris that otherwise would not have made it ashore without the violent surf.
Politically, that translates into an election surge that is strong enough to sweep candidates who wouldn’t ordinarily win – because of the make-up of their districts or the limited funding of their campaigns, for example – to victory.
Using that definition of a wave election makes it considerably more debatable whether 2014 is (or will become) one.
Well, whether one wants to call it a wave or not — and by Rothenberg’s calculus, 2006 might not qualify — Republicans appear to be on the cusp of a very large win nationally. In fact, that’s not even really in question anymore, but whether or not the win will be large enough to take control of the Senate. That would require a flip in Senate seats equal to 2006 and 2010, the latter of which was definitely a wave election. Still, even with all of the national indicators showing fair winds and sunny skies for the GOP, each race is its own contest, and it’s not clear yet just how big this win might be.
Fortunately, we have another metric — the media’s Sour Grapes Index, in which analysts posit that a big win is really a loss, or that a loss is really a big win. That metric got a boost today with separate but similar articles in The Hill and National Journal predicting a Republican civil war after a big win on Tuesday. The Hill headlines Alexander Bolton’s piece, “Civil war looms for GOP”: