It's the last week of 2017, and people are already making predictions about 2018.  So let me give my early take on all this.

Let's start with Newt Gingrich, who predicted a "surprise" in 2018:

The great political surprise of 2018 will be the size of the Republican victory.

After members of the elite media have spent two years savaging President Trump, lying about Republican legislation, and reassuring themselves that Republican defeat was inevitable, the size of the GOP victory in 2018 will be an enormous shock.

Newt goes on to mention our friend Barry Casselman, who has a good eye for political waves:

H[i]storically ... the party out of power makes gains in the first mid-term election after [it] lose[s] the White House.

This precedent has fueled recent media and Democratic Party strategists' anticipations of a 2018 "blue wave."

This tide in blue might still happen, but the genuine signs for it are not yet present. 

In fact, the signs for now point the other way.  Donald Trump not only defied conventional wisdom in 2016[;] he has continued to do so (admittedly with not a few political hiccups) in the eleven months since taking office.

Remember that losing seats is not the same thing as losing the House or U.S. Senate.  In recent years, only President Clinton in 1994 and President Obama in 2010 lost big in their first midterm elections.  President G.W. Bush actually picked up the Senate in 2002!

In other words, as my old history professor used to say, history repeats itself until it does not!

There is another point, and it has to do with today's Democratic Party.

Back in 2006, the Democrats won back the House by running centrist candidates.  Is the Democratic Party capable of that today?  Can the Democrats run people who can win rural areas?  I don't think so.  Just look at the map!

So we will sit back and check out the waves in the horizon.  I won't be surprised if the GOP holds the House and picks up a couple of Senate seats – say, in Indiana, Missouri, or West Virginia.

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