“I think that the recent special elections are consistent with the idea that we are at something of a neutral political environment. It just seems to me at the moment that turnout is going to be through the roof on both sides. It’s going to be higher than it was in 2018. Both sides have reason to turn out now. Then it becomes a question of which of the two sides ultimately has the upper hand”

– Republican consultant and pollster Patrick Ruffini in an interview with Politico. Ruffini seems a little more than cautiously optimistic for the GOP nonetheless, which is kind of stupid because Republicans tend to get fucking crushed when turnout is high. The 2010 and 2014 midterms saw 41% (90.9 million) and 36% (83.2 million), respectively, of the voting age population show up, with Dems losing 63 House seats in 2010 and 13 in 2014 (smaller hit because they obviously couldn’t lose seats they didn’t already have). The popular vote delta was 6.8% in 2010 and 5.7% in 2014.

In 2018, when 50.3% (118.5 million) of eligible voters showed up, the Democrats took 41 House seats and won the popular vote by 8.6%, making a little weird, to say the least, to see a GOP strategist so sanguine about this, even given the advantages the Republicans still have in the House going into the midterms. While it would be utterly insane to think the Democrats are somehow going to crush the GOP like they did in 2018, it is far less so to also believe they wouldn’t still have a hell of an edge if overall turnout will be bigger than it was in that Blue Wave year.