October 2018, just weeks before Donald Trump’s first midterm cycle, I wrote my first column forecasting a blue wave — one that I thought could become a tsunami.
It turned out to be a tsunami election here in Colorado and across the country.
Eight years later, in Trump’s second midterm election, the conditions are ripe for another significant backlash.
Is this Déjà vu or vu déjà — that feeling that nothing like this has happened before?
I raise this because Democrats seem to have an unlikely ally: President Trump himself. Trump seems to be doing everything in his power and control to throw the midterm elections to the Democrats.
Trump continues to prosecute an unpopular conflict with Iran. A new CNN poll shows that overall only 26% of Americans approve of his handling of the situation with Iran, with two-thirds saying we aren’t winning the conflict and we have no clear plan to end it.
At the same time, Trump has allowed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to fire or force out at least 20 senior military leaders whose experience and advice would seem to be particularly valuable now.
The conflict has also hit Americans in their wallets. Since the conflict with Iran began, the national average price of gasoline has surged by $1.49 per gallon or an increase of about 50%. The impact is even more dramatic for diesel, which has soared roughly $2.76 per gallon or 70%. Diesel fuels trucks, transit, agricultural machinery and cargo ships.
America has an affordability crisis with rising grocery and electricity costs, but it goes beyond that. For millions of Americans, particularly those 40 years of age and under, the American dream of owning a home continues to be out of reach. The average 30-year mortgage rate has climbed to nearly 7%, the highest level in 20 months. The median single-family home sale price in metro Denver is now about $650,000.
Meanwhile, two-thirds of Americans worry about being able to afford health care coverage. The pressure is even more intense in rural parts of America, where hospitals were already struggling to survive and have been impacted by the One Big Beautiful Bill.
At a time when a recent Fox poll showed that 63% of Americans believe that the Trump administration has made the economy worse, Trump opened a new trade war with our largest trading partner, imposing 50% tariffs on Canada on roughly $20 billion of Canadian goods, and Canada responded in kind, with a dollar-for-dollar tariff on American products, including steel, aluminum, furniture, electronics and agricultural goods and food products.
This trade war is having an oversized impact in battleground states like Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Maine and other border states where jobs, farms and factories depend on tariff-free business with Canada.
Republicans had entered this cycle with redistricting and massive fundraising advantages that have become even more pronounced with recent Supreme Court decisions, but at best it can only mitigate election day losses at this point.
In many ways, this cycle is more of a red undertow than a blue wave, as national political analyst Charlie Cook has aptly noted.
Democrats will secure major wins in spite of themselves. They have struggled to articulate a cohesive national message beyond their opposition to Trump. Democratic socialists are pushing the moderates aside and making room in the party for antisemites like Hasan Piker, and the socialist movement’s presumptive leader is Bernie Sanders, who is not even a Democrat.
As early ballots start to arrive, the political environment continues to deteriorate badly for the Republicans, where they are also suffering an enthusiasm gap with Democrats.
Charlie Cook described the three most plausible outcomes, with the most likely scenario being Republicans losing between 26 and 35 House seats and four or five Senate seats. And the Polymarket has Democrats flipping both the House and Senate.
Democrats are also well positioned in the gubernatorial battlefield where Republicans currently hold a 26 to 24 advantage. Democrats have strong candidates who will likely win races in Arizona, Iowa, Michigan, and Wisconsin and are in toss-up races in Ohio, Alaska, Georgia and Nevada, with the potential to win upsets in Florida and Texas where the Real Clear Politics polling averages are within the margins of error.
Here, in Colorado, I predict Democrats will continue to control all statewide offices and have a real chance for a supermajority in the House and Senate. The congressional races also present a unique opportunity for Democrats, where Manny Rutinel, a Democrat, is trying to beat Rep. Gabe Evans in Congressional District 8, one of the most heavily targeted races in the country.
Some insiders are also predicting that a tsunami could wash away Republicans Rep. Jeff Hurd in Congressional District 3 and Rep. Jeff Crank in Congressional District 5. U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert in deep red Congressional District 4 could be the only one left standing in the wake of Trump’s undertow.
Why would Trump make things so much worse?
Lose the House and Senate, and Trump can spend the final two years of his presidency standing alone at the center of the Republican Party. Instead of sharing responsibility in Washington, where he is losing his grip, he can portray himself as the outsider, blaming Democrats for everything going wrong and position himself as the singular dominant force and dealmaker for the party heading into 2028.
Déjà vu or vu déjà?
One thing is for sure: a blue wave is coming, and it might just be a tsunami.
Doug Friednash is a partner with the law firm Brownstein, Hyatt, Farber and Schreck, who grew up in Denver and writes occasional columns for The Denver Post.
Sign up for Sound Off to get a weekly roundup of our columns, editorials and more.
To send a letter to the editor about this article, submit online or check out our guidelines for how to submit by email or mail.
