To better understand the electoral history of the different battleground states (including California because I live there), and more specifically to gain better insight into the unprecedented “Blue Wave” of 2018 and what it means for 2020, I plotted the House, Presidential, and Gubernatorial election numbers into charts.
It confirmed my suspicion that, while the 2018 blue wave was absolutely an impressive accomplishment, and Democrats deserve every ounce of credit for that achievement, with the exception of Arizona, it did not surpass their 2016 numbers, and could have been offset, had Republicans not been infighting (MAGA vs. Establishment/RINOs), by a larger red wave.
Arizona is the one battleground state where the 2018 numbers exceeded their 2016 numbers, which is what put Arizona into play in 2020.
That isn’t to say that Republicans didn’t do well in 2018, as their numbers were also higher than previous off-year elections, but they just couldn’t compete with the Democrats, in large part due to the infighting, and with the infighting behind them, Republicans are expected to do well again.
Another thing worth noting is that, for whatever reason, the blue wave largely passed Florida and North Carolina by, as their waves were small by comparison.
Finally, with respect to California, I want to point out that in the 2018 gubernatorial race, John Cox, the Republican, outperformed the Republican House votes whereas Gavin Newsom, the Democrat, underperformed the Democrat house votes.
By comparison Hillary, Obama, Jerry Brown, and (especially) Arnold Schwarzenegger outperformed. The last California governor to underperform was Gray Davis, and he was recalled. This illustrates that Gavin Newsom is in fact not a popular governor, but simply won as a consequence of California being a one party Democrat state in an anti-Trump election.
Going forward, this doesn’t bode well for California as any well connected Democrat clown will automatically sail to victory unless faced with an extremely popular but unlikely Republican alternative like Arnold.
With the election coming up fast, I’ve decided to post this as well for anyone’s interest.