The God-Emperor’s triumph is all-but-certain now. FiveThirtyEight thinks the Democrats’ chances of winning the House are more than five percent higher than Hillary Clinton’s probability of winning the Presidency:
It was this week two years ago that Hillary Clinton’s victory looked assured, when the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape of Donald Trump bragging about sexual assault appeared all but certain to end his campaign.
Jesse Ferguson remembers it well. The deputy press secretary for Clinton’s campaign also remembers what happened a month later.
It’s why this veteran Democratic operative can’t shake the feeling that, as promising as the next election looks for his party, it might still all turn out wrong.
“Election Day will either prove to me I have PTSD or show I’ve been living déjà vu,” Ferguson said. “I just don’t know which yet.”
Ferguson is one of many Democrats who felt the string of unexpected defeat in 2016 and are now closely — and nervously — watching the current election near its end, wondering if history will repeat itself. This year, instead of trying to win the presidency, Democrats have placed an onus on trying to gain 23 House seats and win a majority.
The anxiety isn’t universal, with many party leaders professing confidently and repeatedly that this year really is different.
But even some of them acknowledge the similarities between the current and previous election: Trump is unpopular and beset by scandal, Democrats hold leads in the polls, and some Republicans are openly pessimistic.
FiveThirtyEight gives Democrats a 76.9 percent chance of winning the House one month before Election Day. Their odds for Clinton’s victory two years ago? 71.4 percent.
It’s going to be delicious when the reality that there is no Blue Wave finally hits them in the face like a kayaker being struck in the face with an octopus by an otter.