On Tuesday night, Democrats in Florida flipped a Republican-held seat in Senate District 14 and another in House District 87 — home to President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence. The latter was an especially impressive result, as HD-87 voted for Trump by an 11-point margin in 2024. These wins brought the Democrats’ total state-legislative flips during the President’s second term up to 12.

They also provide the latest evidence that a “blue wave” is building ahead of the November midterm elections. Across all special elections held since the start of 2025, the average swing has been a massive 14 points toward Democrats. For context, at this same point during Trump’s first term the average swing was 11 points in their favour.

Looking at the big picture, Democrats have a lot to be optimistic about going into the midterms. They not only cleaned up in the major off-year elections of 2025, but also benefitted from a powerful historical tailwind: the president’s party is almost always punished by voters in November. These tend to be steeper when the incumbent is unpopular and economic expectations are poor (and expected to get worse). Moreover, betting markets not only overwhelmingly favour Democrats to win back the House of Representatives, but their chances of reclaiming the Senate have shot up from just 25% in November to almost 50–50 today.

Still, Democrats should not count their chickens before they hatch. While the aforementioned factors portend a “wave” election, there are also data points complicating that forecast. For example, in the “generic ballot” test, gauging which party voters support in their upcoming congressional race, Democrats only lead Republicans by about five points, which trails their advantage at the same time in the 2018 cycle.

Additionally, to truly dominate, Democrats will need to at minimum mirror their performance with independent voters, among whom they won by 13 points in 2018. The party currently leads the Republicans by about 11 points, but 20% of voters remain undecided. Unless this group breaks overwhelmingly for Democrats, the wave may have its limits.

However, let’s say the party’s best-case scenario comes true this November: it wins a big House majority, captures the Senate by flipping seats in deep-red states, and makes substantial gains in state legislatures and governorships. The risk then is a repeat of what happened after each of the last two midterms, when the Democrats headed into the subsequent presidential election having learned the wrong lessons.

The 2018 “wave” convinced many in the party that America was angry at Trump (a correct assessment) and that voters were therefore ready to embrace a hyper-Left version of the Democrats (an incorrect assessment). Though Joe Biden, who ran a moderate primary campaign, emerged as the nominee and ultimately the general election winner, the party’s Leftward sprint in the presidential primary likely hurt its down-ballot performance.

Something similar happened after 2022. That year, the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade and Republicans ran a slate of controversial candidates in swing states. Both factors helped Democrats stave off expected losses, leading them to again draw the wrong conclusions and make severe missteps, including believing that anti-MAGA animus could propel them to victory once more in 2024.

The reality is that while Democrats are likely to benefit yet again from anti-Trump sentiment among the electorate, they still face multiple structural problems. Voters continue to trust Republicans more on the big issues. Democrats’ voter registration rolls have suffered an inexorable decline. And as the party has become more liberal and concentrated in a handful of urban areas — and less representative of the median American voter — it is becoming harder to consistently compete for the Senate and Electoral College.

So while November may reap big rewards, there will still be a lot of self-reflection to carry out ahead of 2028 and beyond.

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Michael Baharaeen is chief political analyst at The Liberal Patriot substack.

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