Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters is just scary enough to lose if the Republican midterm wave isn’t high.
Photo: Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
In a midterm election the U.S. House results are typically a product of overall national party preferences. Voters who are disappointed in President Biden probably aren’t going to go out of their way to support their Democratic representative in the House, even if she has brought home the bacon and handled constituent services well for years. And since all 435 House seats are up for election every two years, any “wave” in party preferences (which almost always cuts against the party controlling the White House) is going to shift a serious number of seats to the “out party.” That, in a nutshell, is why Republicans are heavily favored to flip the five seats they need to grab the Speaker’s gavel in November.
Gubernatorial races can sometimes defy a midterm wave because they tend to revolve around state issues. And U.S. Senate races are somewhere in between: Senate candidates are highly visible statewide presences who over time can build a base of support that extends beyond their party; and conversely, there are some Senate candidates so flawed that they under-perform their party. Only one-third of the Senate is up every three years,…
