Now that we’ve all had a year-long respite from Washington electoral politics (stop laughing), it’s time once again for journalists to resume retailing their favorite narrative — the horse race. Fortunately for them, this year they can combine it with their Trump hatred and their fondness for the “resistance” and thus turn nearly every story about the president, the Republicans, conservatives and everybody else they loathe into the Left’s Coming Revenge on Trump.
In this scenario, the electorate is finally waking up from a long hangover; revolted, the righteous, female-dominated, Democrat-voting majority will now rise up at the ballot box, recapture the House, and immediately vote articles of impeachment. At the same time — and despite the extremely long odds of this actually happening — the Great Blue Wave will wash over the Senate as well, which means that a conviction and Trump’s removal from office would be at least a theoretical possibility. Why, just look at Virginia and Alabama!
Such daydreams, however, are very likely misplaced, as Nate Silver notes:
The Senate map is really tough for Democrats, with 26 Democratic seats in play next year (including a newly opened seat in Minnesota after Al Franken announced his intention to retire) as compared to just eight Republican ones. Moreover, five of the Democratic-held seats — the ones in West Virginia, North Dakota, Montana, Missouri and Indiana — are in states that President Trump won by 18 percentage points or more.