Red wave

In the United States, a red wave election is an election where there is a surge of voters supporting Republican candidates which results in an unusually high number being elected to office.

In the United States, the Republican Party is associated with the color red.[1]

In the United States, a red wave election is an election where there is a surge of voters supporting Republican candidates which results in an unusually high number being elected to office. In the United States, the Republican Party is associated with the color red.[2]

As far the 2022 midterm elections, a red wave of Republican/conservative voters has been predicted by pundits in order to give a majority of Republicans in the U.S. Congress and potentially in U.S. Senate as well in the 2022 midterm U.S. Congressional elections.

Historically, in the midterm elections during a President's first term, no matter the President's popularity ratings, the opposing party tends to gain seats, and it is not uncommon to see that party gain the majority of the House since all 435 seats are up for re-election (this took place during the 2018 midterm elections when the Democrats, the party opposing Republican President Donald Trump, took House control, as well as in 2010 when the Republicans took House control from the Democrats, the party of President Barack Obama); the Senate (which only has 1/3 of its seats up for re-election each year not counting special elections to fill unexpired terms) is usually harder to reclaim. Similarly, in those instances where a President is re-elected, the midterm elections frequently go against his party (this was the case in 2014, during President Obama's second term, when the Republicans gained 13 seats in the House and nine seats in the Senate, reclaiming control of the latter). Also, most states have their major elections (Governor and statewide races) in the same year as a midterm Congressional election, and thus a significant showing by one party or the other is often used as a gauge to determine potential strength in the upcoming Presidential election.

Based on these two factors, if history continues as usual (and the Democrats are unable to rig elections), the Republicans need to gain only five seats in the House to regain control of that chamber, and only one Senate seat to break the current tie. For examples, in Florida the current District 13 (held by party-switcher Democrat and former Governor Charlie Crist) is open as Crist intends to run for Governor and it also gained a 28th seat (the makeup of the districts is dependent on redistricting; although Republicans hold majorities in both chambers of the Florida Legislature, the state constitution requires districts to be generally compact geographically -- an exception is allowed for the widely-spread Florida Keys -- and therefore unlike other states Florida cannot gerrymander the districts to favor one party or the other). The Senate, however, will be harder to reclaim as the lone Republican Senator from Pennsylvania, Pat Toomey, is retiring, and Pennsylvania will likely repeat its rigging in 2020 to ensure a Democrat victory, even if the Georgia seat is reclaimed by the Republicans based on their strengthening of election laws to prevent the rigging from 2020 in that state.

## 2010 Midterm elections and wave of anti-abortion laws due to the red wave election[edit]

See also: 2010 Midterm Elections

The New York Times in a news article about Roe vs. Wade entitled How Did Roe Fall: Before a Decisive Ruling, A Powerful Red Wave stated:

“  |  The beginning of the end of Roe v. Wade arrived on election night in November 2010.

That night, control of state houses across the country flipped from Democrat to Republican, almost to the number: Democrats had controlled 27 state legislatures going in and ended up with 16; Republicans started with 14 and ended up controlling 25. Republicans swept not only the South but Democratic strongholds in the Midwest, picking up more seats nationwide than either party had in four decades. By the time the votes had been counted, they held their biggest margin since the Great Depression.

There had been a time, in the 15 years after Roe, when Republicans were as likely as Democrats to support an absolute right to legal abortion, and sometimes even more so. But 2010 swept in a different breed of Republican, powered by Tea Party supporters, that locked in a new conservatism. While Tea Party-backed candidates had campaigned on fiscal discipline and promised indifference to social issues, once in office they found it difficult to cut state budgets. And a well-established network was waiting with model anti-abortion laws.

In legislative sessions starting the following January, Republican-led states passed a record number of restrictions: 92, or nearly three times as many as the previous high, set in 2005. The three years following the 2010 elections would result in 205 anti-abortion laws across the country, more than in the entire previous decade.

“A watershed year in the defense of life,” Charmaine Yoest, at the time president of the anti-abortion group Americans United for Life, proclaimed when the sessions were over, noting that 70 of the laws — restrictions on abortion pills and hurdles for women getting abortions and clinics providing them — had adopted the group’s model legislation. “And that is just the beginning.”[3]

|  ”

|
|

## See also[edit]

* Blue wave

## External links[edit]

* Without drastic changes, Democrats are on track to lose big in the U.S. 2022 midterm elections., The Hill, 2021
* ↑ Red wave, thefreedictionary.com
* ↑ Red wave, thefreedictionary.com
* ↑ How Did Roe Fall: Before a Decisive Ruling, A Powerful Red Wave by Kate Zernike, New York Times, June 25, 2022