PolitiFact – PolitiFact Iowa: The term ‘red wave’ is more complicated than you think

Regardless of predictions in some corners of a nationwide Republican surge within the midterm elections, Democrats made their very own blue splash in a few of the most hotly contested races Nov. 8, conserving maintain of the Senate whereas conserving Republicans from seizing as many Home seats as they’d hoped.

Typically, a crimson (or blue) wave refers to election outcomes by which a lot of the intensely contested seats are received by the identical get together, particularly in most elements of the nation, in accordance with tutorial analysis we reviewed and political scientists we interviewed.

But, settlement on the phrase’s usefulness in describing politics shouldn’t be common. Steffen Schmidt, Iowa State College political science professor emeritus, mentioned the media love to make use of phrases like crimson wave or tsunami with no particular background on what that time period means.

“Some persons are saying that ‘tsunami’ would have been higher, which is, you already know, an enormous quantity of water that rushes in and sweeps all the pieces away,” Schmidt instructed PolitiFact Iowa. “I believe ‘crimson wave’ was simply made up as a type of catchy phrase.”

Primarily based on a mixture of historic patterns and public opinion, some pundits predicted a nationwide crimson wave would happen on this yr’s election. In virtually each midterm election since World Struggle II, a president’s get together has misplaced seats within the Home, and has typically misplaced them within the Senate. The losses are typically particularly massive when the president has weak approval scores, as Joe Biden did this yr. (Right here’s PolitiFact’s pre-election evaluation of historic patterns in midterm elections and why 2022 would possibly prove otherwise.)

In the end, nevertheless, Democrats ended up profitable most of the hardest-fought Senate races, together with these in Arizona, Nevada and Pennsylvania, enabling the get together to maintain its slim management of the Senate. (One Democratic-held seat, in Georgia, stays to be decided in a runoff.) Democrats additionally prevented Republicans aligned with former President Donald Trump from profitable key gubernatorial contests, and stored the variety of seats flipped by Republicans within the Home effectively under the greater than 40 that modified arms within the 2018 midterms.

Nonetheless, in some states, Republicans exceeded pre-election expectations. The GOP received commanding victories throughout the board in Florida, as an illustration, they usually did a lot better than anticipated in U.S. Home races in New York, regardless of it usually being a blue state.

One of many states by which Republicans cruised to victory was Iowa, the place voters ousted Democrats within the state’s third Congressional District, state lawyer common, and state treasurer. Within the new yr, just one Democrat will maintain a statewide elected workplace, state Auditor Rob Sand, in a state that had three earlier than the election.

Additionally, Republican U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley stored his seat to enter his eighth time period by beating Democrat Mike Franken, and Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds simply received her race for a second time period towards Democrat Deidre DeJear and Libertarian Rick Stewart.

Within the Legislature, Republicans secured 22 of 34 Iowa Senate seats up for grabs. In accordance with unofficial outcomes, Republicans received 63 of the 100 Iowa Home seats through the election.

Solely 5 of 99 Iowa counties — Johnson, Linn, Black Hawk, Story and Polk — backed Franken over Grassley within the U.S. Senate race, Iowa Secretary of State knowledge present.

Standards and thresholds of the “wave”

There is no such thing as a official definition of a wave (or a tsunami). However political analyst Stuart Rothenberg mentioned in 2014 {that a} common wave, crimson or blue, occurs when one get together experiences a lack of almost 20 U.S. Home seats and the secondary get together has few losses.

Matthew Inexperienced, a Catholic College politics professor who wrote “Underdog Politics: The Minority Get together within the U.S. Home of Representatives,” reached the identical conclusion for a 2018 Washington Put up evaluation of what was being known as then a “blue wave.”

The GOP will fall effectively in need of that determine; just a few late-to-be-called contests will decide the ultimate quantity.

The Political Dictionary defines “wave election” as occurring when a political get together makes important positive aspects in an election.

“Again in 2006, for instance, nationally, the Democrats simply wiped up, they received seats they weren’t anticipated to win,” mentioned David Redlawsk, a College of Delaware political scientist who used to show on the College of Iowa. “In case you needed to focus simply on Iowa, you possibly can say, yeah, they received a lot of the toss-ups,” he mentioned.

“All of these are indicators of waves, and it’s very particular to the state.”

Redlawsk’s standards for the crimson wave is not only about one facet profitable lots. Quite, it’s about the entire toss-up seats transferring in the identical path, he instructed PolitiFact.

“You’d type of suppose that when let’s say there are a dozen races which can be 50-50, might go both approach, you’ll type of suppose they’d be break up half and half,” Redlawsk mentioned. “However in truth, in a wave election, normally one get together picks up almost all of them. And, you already know, we didn’t actually see that.”

Tim Hagle, a College of Iowa political scientist, instructed The Each day Iowan {that a} particular quantity doesn’t have to be gained for the election to be thought of a wave.

“One instance of that could possibly be how the Democrats had a wave election in 1974 after Watergate and gained 49 seats within the Home, Hagle wrote in an electronic mail. “The elective workplaces normally seek advice from the U.S. Home and Senate, however can embody state workplaces (governorships, and so forth.) and state legislative workplaces,” he wrote.

“I believe it’s clear there have been actually no waves by way of this explicit election,” Iowa State’s Schmidt mentioned. “If we have a look at it nationally, clearly, particular person states can differ.”