More of a bubble than a wave

That's not a wave on which you can surf to 2020 victory.

Going into the mid-term elections, Democrats were predicting a tangible "blue wave" of electoral victories, but that tsunami turned into a ripple in most places Tuesday. Democrats did regain majority control of the U.S. House, but they failed in some of the most high-profile races that they had bolstered with money and attention — failing to topple vulnerable, mercurial Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, failing to win governorships in Florida and Ohio (key states in 2020) and failing to hold onto Senate seats in the Republican-dominated Midwest.

President Donald Trump is claiming credit for the Republican showing in these races, and his influence on campaigns across the country is hard to deny. Trump took his comedic road show to states where Republicans were vulnerable, and he fired up the GOP base with warnings about an "invasion" of illegal immigrants from Mexico, higher taxes under a Democratic Congress (although the GOP majority in the Senate makes that nearly impossible) and (of course) news professionals Trump is convinced are conspiring against him. In many places and in many minds, Trump's effort to exaggerate, prevaricate and conjure false "facts" worked well. His one-man shows (it's hard to consider his boisterous, insult-filled, narcissistic extravaganzas political rallies in the traditional sense) were effective in getting his base excited about the mid-terms. Democrats won enough seats to gain a majority in the U.S. House, but their victories were limited to a bubble here and there in mostly moderate- or left-leaning states, not a sustained wave of turnovers.

Democrats did not put themselves into an appreciably better position for the 2020 election. They failed to win key governorships and state houses that will help determine both the 2020 presidential election and the 2021 redistricting of House seats. Democrats still have a lot of work to do to regain the power they enjoyed in the past (e.g., 1932-1952, 1960-1966, 1974-1978).

The most troubling aspect of the mid-terms to anyone outside the legions of Trump loyalists is the impact on the Mueller investigation of the 2016 election. By firing Attorney General Jeff Sessions and replacing him with an apparent sycophant who has cast doubts on the entire investigation, Trump has connived to void any possibility that America will get to the bottom of Russian influence in the 2016 election and the allegations of coordination between the Trump campaign and a foreign power. This scenario is comparable to what would have happened if Nixon's "Saturday Night Massacre" had succeeded in stopping progress on the Watergate investigation. Winning a majority in the House gives the Democrats an opportunity to re-open the laughably incomplete House investigation into the 2016 election, but even the subpoena power of a congressional committee cannot compare with the indictment and plea-bargaining possibilities of a criminal investigation.

The net result of the 2018 mid-terms is that Trump has gained the advantage in 2020 and owns the Republican Party.