Drudge Retort: The Other Side of the News
Tuesday, December 16, 2025

There's a key factor limiting the power of a potential Democratic surge next year: the number of seats that are realistically competitive.

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More from the analysis ...

... Even as this year's election results have left many in the party encouraged they can mount a massive blue wave, next year's battleground is a far cry from 2018 -- with fewer Republican-held seats for Democrats to easily target.

Democrats don't need to win as many seats this time around, netting just three seats rather than two dozen to claim a majority. But the hill to reach a comfortable majority like the 235 seats they held after the last blue wave has grown much steeper, driven by multiple rounds of gerrymandering -- including ongoing redistricting in several states that threatens to erode the battlefield even further.

The result is that Democrats could post a bigger national swing than in 2018 and still end up with a slimmer majority than they had after that year. To flip 40 seats again would require them to win not just the kinds of highly competitive seats that fueled their House takeover last time but every district that Trump won by 12 points or less, a task that would not only defy political gravity but upend it. ...



#1 | Posted by LampLighter at 2025-12-16 03:32 PM | Reply

If my MAGA addled, One Big Beautiful Bill, Congressman in my hyper-Red district can announce retirement fully one year in advance of the next election, then the possibility of that Blue Wave being a high one is very real indeed

#2 | Posted by Zed at 2025-12-16 03:56 PM | Reply

Racism

#3 | Posted by fresno500 at 2025-12-16 05:15 PM | Reply

@#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." ...


#4 | Posted by LampLighter at 2025-12-16 07:17 PM | Reply

Your corporate Democrats should worry.

Zionism is a disease.

#5 | Posted by redlightrobot at 2025-12-16 07:41 PM | Reply

Please keep the phony pro-Palestine idiots at home next year, mmmmkay?

#6 | Posted by LegallyYourDead at 2025-12-16 10:48 PM | Reply

Please keep the phony pro-Palestine idiots at home next year, mmmmkay?
#6 | Posted by LegallyYourDead at 2025-12-16 10:48 PM

Follow the shekles.

#7 | Posted by redlightrobot at 2025-12-16 11:24 PM | Reply

Do you include all the so-called "Jews for Palestine" in that nonsense?

#8 | Posted by LegallyYourDead at 2025-12-16 11:54 PM | Reply

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