What to Expect When You're Expecting (a Blue Wave)

A week out, Democrats have every reason to be hopeful, and plenty of reasons to be nervous. Here's your guide to the final stretch.

Saturday Night Live’s “Vote Please” segment is evergreen for the 2026 midterms.

The midterm elections are less than a week away. You know this and you’re probably being inundated with political news and fundraising texts. Maybe you love it, but my guess is that most of you are feeling a little overwhelmed by the stakes of the election and all the polls and data flying around.

So, I’ve put together a guide for everyone who is a little nervous about the election, and I’m going to extend the metaphor from the headline as far as I possibly can to do it with an eye towards the “rebirth” of American democracy. Please enjoy (or excuse) the lighthearted tone. I think we could all use a smile.

The Nervous Parent Stage

If you’ve spent any time online this week, there’s a good chance you’ve seen a video making the rounds. It starts out like any political ad. A cheerful woman in a quilted jacket stands in a front yard full of “Vote Blue” signs and announces, with a big smile, that there’s a blue wave on the horizon. Kids run through the fall leaves. Everything is going to be fine.

And then, one by one, everybody starts to crack. A doctor clutches a breathing mask. A florist takes a long pull from a jar behind the counter. The smiles get tighter and tighter, until the whole thing ends on a single plea in big block letters: “VOTE! PLEASE?”

Here’s the kicker. Look closely at the yard signs, and you’ll see the date. That video was made in 2018. Eight years later, it might be more relatable than ever.

So let’s acknowledge the elephant in the room (pun intended). By almost every measure, Democrats are heading into next Tuesday in a strong position. Decision Desk HQ’s forecast gives them a 79 percent chance of winning the House. Republican strategists are already blaming each other in the press. Races that were supposed to be safe for the GOP are suddenly on the board. The momentum is real.

And yet, if you’re a Democrat, or an independent, or a disaffected Republican who’s had enough, you’re probably a little nervous anyway. I understand. A lot of us have been here before, and we remember how it felt when things didn’t go the way the polls said they would.

Here’s what to watch, what to ignore, and what to do.

Don’t Google Every Symptom

Mark Twain popularized the famous line that there are three kinds of lies: “lies, damned lies, and statistics.” If Twain were around today, I suspect he’d add a fourth: early vote data.

There’s an entire cottage industry on X right now of accounts that treat every new batch of early voting numbers like a positive pregnancy test, or a sign of impending doom. A county reports a few thousand more ballots than yesterday, and someone posts a thread explaining what it means for the Senate. Then someone else posts a thread explaining why the first thread is wrong.

Here’s my advice. Unless you’re a genuine expert who knows how to compare this year’s numbers to the right baseline, monitoring those accounts is mostly a great way to raise your blood pressure. Some of it is insight. A lot of it is guesswork. And a little of it is people selling you exactly the emotion they think you want to feel.

That said, here’s what the serious people are seeing. According to the early voting tracker run by political scientist Michael McDonald at the University of Florida, more than 30 million Americans had already voted as of Monday, well ahead of the pace from the last midterms.

In the states that report party registration, registered Democrats have cast about 45 percent of early ballots, compared to about 31 percent for Republicans. McDonald is also seeing higher early turnout among Black voters in the states that report race.

Those are genuinely good signs. But they come with a big asterisk. As one elections expert told NPR, early voting data is often a poor predictor of final results, partly because Democrats tend to vote early and Republicans tend to show up on Election Day. So take the good news, say thank you, and close the app.

Signs Labor Has Begun

If you want to know what kind of night it’s going to be, you don’t have to wait for the networks. Some of the earliest races to report will tell you a lot. Here’s my own cheat sheet, with an assist from Decision Desk HQ’s forecasts. Think of it as three tiers.

A Good Night: These are the races Democrats should win if they’re on track to take the House and hold their own in the Senate.

- Ohio’s 7th District, where Max Miller, the Republican accused of abusing his ex-wife and their daughter, is in a true coin-flip race in a district Trump won by 11 points.

- Virginia’s 2nd, where Republican Rep. Jen Kiggans has only about a 1 in 6 chance of holding on.

- Senate races in Georgia and North Carolina, where Jon Ossoff is fighting to hold his seat and Roy Cooper is fighting to flip one. If those go the way the polls suggest, Democrats are having the night they expected. If Ossoff wins by 9+ points, it could be a gangbuster night for Dems.

A Wave: This is where it gets interesting.

- Kentucky’s 6th District, around Lexington, will be one of the very first races to report, with polls closing at 6 p.m. Eastern in a seat Trump won by 15 points. If Democrats are winning there, pay attention.

- Same goes for Virginia’s 5th, where former Rep. Tom Perriello is running a strong race in a district Trump carried by 12.

- Watch Florida’s 9^th for an early read on whether Hispanic voters are swinging back toward Democrats.

- Add in James Talarico’s race against Ken Paxton for the Senate in Texas, and Amy Acton’s race for governor in Ohio.

Wins in these seats mean this isn’t just a good night. It’s a wave.

An Earthquake: These are the seats Democrats really shouldn’t win, but might if the bottom falls out for Republicans.

- Lindsey Graham’s Senate race in South Carolina has become unexpectedly competitive.

- In Indiana’s 5th District, Republican Rep. Victoria Spartz won by nearly 19 points two years ago.

- In North Carolina’s 9th, the Republican is the man in charge of electing House Republicans across the country, running in a district Trump won by 16.

- And in Florida’s 27th, Rep. Maria Salazar ran an ad this fall criticizing Trump’s immigration crackdown in a district he won by 15.

If any of those flip, this could be a wave with a magnitude approaching Democrats’ 2018 surge.

It Might Be a Long Delivery

Now that I’ve given you the races to watch, I need to give you a big caveat: election night is not going to give you every answer by bedtime.

Different states count their ballots at different speeds. Some count mail ballots early. Others can’t even start until Election Day. That means early leads can shift, sometimes dramatically, as more votes come in. A close race might not be called on Tuesday night, or Wednesday, or even later in the week. That isn’t a sign that something has gone wrong. It’s the sign of election workers doing their jobs carefully, counting every legal vote.

And you should be ready for the noise. This is a President who refused to rule out declaring an emergency to take control of this election. His FBI seized hundreds of boxes of ballots from Fulton County, Georgia, five years after they were counted. His chief of staff has said the country will “find out” he really won in 2020. If the results don’t go his way, expect claims of fraud before the counting is anywhere close to finished.

When that happens, don’t take the bait, and don’t panic. Trust the people who actually run our elections, the county clerks and poll workers, Republicans and Democrats, who show up every year and do the hard, unglamorous work of counting. They’ve earned that trust. Give the process the time it needs.

Pack Your Bag

Every expecting parent knows the advice: have the bag packed and ready, so when the moment comes, you’re not scrambling. Voting works the same way.

If you haven’t voted yet, make your plan today. Know where your polling place is and when it’s open. Check whether early voting is still available where you live. Figure out how you’re getting there, what time you’re going, and who’s coming with you. If you’re voting by mail, get that ballot in now.

And if you’ve already voted, thank you. Now go help somebody else get there. Offer a ride. Text a friend who hasn’t voted yet. Check on the neighbor who always means to vote and sometimes forgets. In a close election, that one extra ballot could be the one that matters.

It’s okay to be a little nervous. Nervous means you care. But don’t let the nerves turn into doom, and don’t let the good news turn into complacency. The wave isn’t something that happens to us. It’s something we make, one vote at a time.

Next Tuesday, let’s deliver.

— Adam