The Blue Wave Rises, Con't

Nate Silver and the 538 crew give the Democrats at 70-75% chance to take the House at this point, with a predicted gain of 32-35 seats, with the polls showing an average of an 8-point lead in the generic ballot for the Dems.

Things are so bad for the GOP at this point that Republicans are openly predicting the loss of control of the House will assure an easy Trump 2020 reelection bid, because Democrats can never, ever win.

There’s a new way of demonstrating loyalty to Donald Trump and his Republican Party: Claiming that the president could not only survive an impeachment effort, but that it would guarantee his victory in 2020.

The idea gaining currency on the right is that Trump can be Bill Clinton, not Richard Nixon. It depends on a delicate political calculation — that a Republican-held Senate would never follow a Democratic House and vote to remove Trump, and that voters tired of the long-running Russia scandal will, as they did in the late 1990s with Clinton’s Monica Lewinsky scandal, want to move on.

The notion has surfaced spontaneously among a diverse set of conservatives, including politicians with Trump’s ear and young ultraloyalists of the president whose institutional knowledge of the GOP begins with its new standard-bearer. They’re also the die-hards who aren’t afraid to align themselves with pro-Trump positions even before the president has warmed to them himself.

In interviews, more than a dozen Republican politicians, activists and consultants — including some current and former Trump campaign aides with direct lines to the president — said they are increasingly convinced a Democratic House victory in the midterms and subsequent impeachment push would backfire and ultimately help the president in 2020.

“If they take the House, he wins big,” Barry Bennett, a former senior adviser to the Trump campaign, told POLITICO. “The market always overcorrects.”

The reality of course is that Clinton was capable of contrition.  "I feel your pain" saved him, whereas Trump couldn't perform even the most simple act of empathy.  Of course, it wasn't enough to save Al Gore because of the Supreme Court, and much the same may await us in 2020.  There's no reason to believe Trump will win the popular vote then, either.

But he can still very well end up being reelected...