The underrated factors limiting power of blue wave next year

@#2 ... then the possibility of that Blue Wave being a high one is very real indeed ...

I do not disagree.

But possibility is different than probability.

That aside, there is also the question of how many seats might be turned to the Democrats s such a blue wave?

A blue tidal wave, or a blue ripple?

Interesting that the RNC seems to have a large concern ...

Trump's Hand-Picked RNC Chair Predicts Doom (December 12, 2025)
www.thebulwark.com

... Another day, another discharge petition short-circuiting the power of House Speaker Mike Johnson. Yesterday, the House passed a bill overturning a Trump executive order stripping union protections from some federal workers, a bill that began as a petition circulated by Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine).

It came as some surprise to everyone that Johnson, thrust unexpectedly into the speaker's job in 2023 at a moment of maximum intra-conference chaos, managed to keep things ticking along as smoothly as he did for a while. Now, however, he seems to be landing pretty much where many people expected him to be from the jump: a weak speaker whose fractious conference increasingly ignores his playbook to do what they want. Happy Friday. ...

Republicans Are Bracing for Midterm Disaster

by Andrew Egger

"It's not a secret. There's no sugarcoating it. It's a pending, looming disaster heading our way."

"We are facing almost certain defeat."

"The chances are Republicans will go down and will go down hard."

"You hit the nail on the head. This is an absolute disaster. No matter what party is in power, they usually get crushed in the midterms."

These pessimistic assessments of Republicans' chances in next year's midterms are the sort of thing you'd expect to hear from disgruntled GOP operatives outside the MAGA camp. This week, however, they've been coming from someone way crazier: Joe Gruters, the Trump-diehard chair of the Republican National Committee, who has been barnstorming conservative radio this week.1

Gruters isn't throwing Trump under the bus. Quite the opposite: As Democrats overperform in special election after special election and Republican confidence in the midterms craters, he's trying to set expectations low -- way low.

After all, he says, the guys in power nearly always lose the midterms.

And as once-unimaginable cracks have begun spiderwebbing across the MAGA coalition, he's making a specific case to his party: "The only person that could bring the nose up and help us win is the president of the United States, Donald J. Trump." ...