On Tuesday night in Wisconsin’s 10th State Senate district, Republicans watched with alarm as Democrats took yet another legislative seat. What makes the loss so troubling is it was a seat Republicans had held for 17 years in a district Donald Trump won in 2016 by 17 points. Yet the Democrat won by 11 points. After a loss like that, Republicans might wonder if a blue wave is building for the midterm elections in November.
There’s no “might”—a blue wave is building without a doubt.
Republican should have been seeing red flags flying all over for almost a year. What if I told you that a bonafide socialist running against the majority whip of Virginia’s House of Delegates—a candidate who was outspent by $500,000 and who was essentially disavowed by the Democratic Party—beat the Republican incumbent by nearly 2,000 votes? That happened in Virginia’s 50th district, which serves Manassas City and part of Prince William County. Republicans have typically won there by double digits. Or consider what happened in Virginia’s 13th district, where the Republican incumbent of 25 years was trounced by a transgender Democrat.
How about New Hampshire’s 4th House district, where Republicans have a 2-1 registration advantage? The Democrat still won. There’s also Oklahoma’s 46th district, where the Republican incumbent would typically win with more than 60 percent of the vote. Yet when the Republican stepped down last year, the Democrat won a special election by a 20-point landslide.
It would be one thing if these races were close, but they’re not really. And the winning candidates aren’t “conservative” Democrats, either—they’re transgender progressives and democratic socialists in the Bernie Sanders’ mold.