Why I think 2026 could be a massive Democratic wave year

Many North Carolina Democrats seem afraid to embrace the signs that their party is likely to do extremely well. It’s a bit of learned helplessness, imbued by years of disappointment in a state that was supposed to be trending blue. But there is a good reason to believe that the Democrats should attempt to liberate themselves from their long-held sense of shellshock. The future, as always, is undetermined. But I believe that the 2026 midterms could see a major Democratic wave.

Leading Democratic commentators in North Carolina have laced their analyses with caveats that the party may underperform expectations. This represents a healthy intellectual humility. But given the current state of electoral politics in North Carolina, wary warnings that the Democrats could disappoint are at odds with what the data indicate. Democrats have held strong leads in nearly all of the opinion polling, which has likely become more accurate as the election has approached and the electoral picture has coalesced. Though polling is an exceptionally fuzzy science, public surveys match the dynamics we have seen in early voting so far. Democrats are not spluttering toward disappointment. They are fulfilling the scenario that polling has projected for over a year.

How? So far, Democrats have dominated early voting. According to Professor Michael Bitzer, Democrats and independents combined for 77% of the early vote as of yesterday. Bitzer is a careful, judicious, and truly nonpartisan analyst, and he seldom indulges in piquant language. But he employed forceful verbiage to describe the partisan dynamics we’ve seen in early voting: “A Week’s Worth of In-Person Voting Has Locked In the Democratic-Unaffiliated Dominance.” The gross vote totals are even more striking than the Democrats’ proportional dominance. So far, Democrats have cast 452,221 votes, compared to 280,097 in the last midterm. Unaffiliated voters have cast 356,952 to 207,110 in 2022. Unaffiliateds have leaned strongly to the Democrats in opinion polling this year, making it reasonable to suppose that their robust turnout should be encouraging to Democrats.

While the raw numbers should excite Democrats, the most instructive indicator that this will be a strong Democratic wave year comes from the differences between Republican and Democratic turnout. Democratic turnout has been forceful and prolific; Republican turnout has flatlined. In the first week of early voting, Republican voters cast 239,079 votes compared to 235,174 in 2022. That amounts to an increase of about 3,900 votes compared to the last midterm. The Democratic difference has been a growth of 170,000 relative to the 2022 elections. Democratic enthusiasm is drowning Republican hopes in a deluge.

One of the wisest things Democratic consultant Thomas Mills has ever written was that “when Democrats turn out in North Carolina, they win.” This maxim has been vindicated in each of the three electoral cycles Democrats have dominated here since 2006. And there is a further nuance that should encourage Democratic partisans. Democrats are turning out and Republicans, so far, seem to be shunning the voting booth. This is a direct inversion of the turnout dynamics that have allowed Republicans to win consistently in our state since the early 2000s. The shift resembles what Democrats saw in the fabled 2008 election, which members of the Tar Heel Donkey Party have yearned to replicate for 18 long years.

I am not—and forgive the cliche but I must repeat myself, I am not—predicting that 2026 will be as glorious for Democrats as 2008. North Carolina Democrats have invoked that shibboleth far too often for such a prediction to be credible. After all, 2008 was not only a once-in-a-lifetime but a once-in-American-history event. (The first-ever election of an African American president can only happen once.) But the turnout patterns we are seeing today bear a closer resemblance to the 2008 landscape than we have seen ever since that year. Even incorporating a modicum of caution, those dynamics should be very encouraging to Democrats.

It is still possible, despite all the positive tidings, that this election may underwhelm the most hopeful Democrats. But I think the party should feel optimistic about what is to come. And I have something of a theory for why the Democrats are so dramatically outpacing the Republicans. It has to do with the strengths and weaknesses of each party’s base.

The Democrats, no less today than in the Obama era, have a base disproportionately made up of infrequent voters. Republicans have a different problem. Their base has turned out in fearsome numbers to support the God-Emperor of Red America, Donald J. Trump. But their loyalty to the Mad King has been so intense that it’s consumed the party’s entire political culture. Politically, Trump’s decline has sent the signal that it was time to drink the Kool-Aid. At the end of this midterm, Republican performance may be weak enough that Trump Country resembles the political equivalent of Jonestown.

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