The goalposts of what constitutes a “blue wave” have shifted an astonishing amount. For me, a good night for Democrats is 30-40 in the House and even or better in the Senate.
If Democrats flipped the House and got a large margin in the House PV, I think I could accept even a net loss of 1-2 seats in the Senate and still call it a wave. I'm more concerned about what the House popular vote is. These days, >= 5-6 points is pretty much a wave. It would be for Republicans, anyway.
Downballot results matter too. A upper-single digits/lower double digit gain of Governors offices and a host of state legislative chamber flips would be really hard to square with anything but a wave.
This is 100% true. There’s really no modern precedent for a party being so disadvantaged in a Senate map while being so heavily favored among the general population — best to take what we can get and celebrate the results of other, less fundamentally weird contests
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