Early results on election night suggested that Democrats had failed to make significant gains in the 2018 midterms. After all the votes were counted, a blue wave crashed on American electoral politics as Democrats won the House the Representatives and made significant gains at the state and local levels.

In this book, Larry Sabato and Kyle Kondik bring together respected journalists and academics from across the political spectrum to examine every facet of the 2018 election, and what its outcome portends for our national politics and the coming 2020 presidential election. In frank, accessible prose, each author offers insight that goes beyond the headlines, and dives into the underlying forces and shifts that drove the election from its earliest developments to its eventual conclusion, long after the polls closed.

Contributions by Alan I. Abramowitz, Matt Barreto, David Byler, Rhodes Cook, James Hohmann, Theodore Johnson, Kyle Kondik, Albert Morales, Diana Owen, Madelaine Pisani, Joshua T. Putnam, Larry Sabato, Gary Segura, Emily C. Singer, Sean Trende, Michael Toner, and Karen Trainer.

It is unusual for a collection of academic essays to flow as though written by a single author or pair of authors. The Blue Wave, edited by Larry Sabato and Kyle Kondik, does so. Any political scientist prepping courses on elections for next year, media pundits wanting to sound more knowledgeable, or political consultants seeking to give clients good advice must read this book. Its initial chapters provide an excellent, detailed retelling of the 2018 election. It moves on to “slice and dice” the role of different demographic constituencies in the outcome of the election. Lastly, the book does two things. First, it sets up how, if what was observed as widespread group behavior continues through 2020, the 2020 presidential election may be impacted. Second, it defines a wave election while simultaneously determining whether the 2018 election was a wave. Wave or not, the 2018 election was certainly significant, and Sabato and Kondik have assembled knowledgeable experts who write well and detail the election in a compelling way.



Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.

Larry J. Sabato is the Robert Kent Gooch Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia and director of its Center for Politics. He is the author or editor of more than twenty books on American politics and elections.

Kyle Kondik is managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, the University of Virginia Center for Politics’ nonpartisan newsletter on American campaigns and elections. He is the author of The Bellwether: Why Ohio Picks the President (2016).