CNN chief data analyst Harry Enten warned Wednesday that Republicans should feel “real fear” heading into the midterm elections, pointing to a Democratic polling lead he said the party should be “salivating” over.
Appearing alongside John Berman on Wednesday morning, Enten highlighted Democrats’ widening advantage in national congressional polls. According to Enten, it is the party’s largest lead going into the midterms since 2008, when Democrats captured majorities in both the House and Senate.
“The high tide may be coming in just the right time,” Enten said of the Democrats.
The numbers he presented show Democratic candidates currently holding a nine-point average advantage over Republicans in congressional races. That lead has grown steadily over the past year, climbing from a three-point edge one year ago.
“The Democratic wave ain’t going away. If anything, it seems to be building at this particular moment,” Enten said.
He went on to say Democrats are looking at a “staircase to potential electoral heaven.”
Enten pointed back to 2008, noting that it was the year Democrats scored their biggest congressional majority wins this century.
The CNN analyst then delivered a blunt warning to the GOP’s campaign operations.
“Sirens should be going off at any of the national Republican Senatorial Committee or Congressional Committee headquarters because these are numbers that Democrats should be salivating over and should strike real fear into Republicans nationwide because when you have Democrats ahead by nine, the last time that happened, it was Democrat electoral gold,” he said.
Enten dug deeper into the historical record to make his case, arguing that a nine-point lead at this stage likely means Democrats will, at a minimum, take control of the House.
“I went back even further back in history. How about this? When Democrats lead by at least nine points in the national congressional polls as of right now in the cycle, 15 of 15 times since 1942, they went on to win the U.S. House of Representatives,” Enten said.
In other words, according to Enten’s analysis, Democrats have never failed to win the House when holding a lead of that size at this point in the cycle over the more than eight decades he reviewed.
“When you see Democrats ahead by nine at this point, so late in the cycle, only about a month to go, that is really, really good news for Democrats because it means that at least historically speaking, they are on their way to at least a House majority, maybe a Senate majority,” he continued.
Enten’s analysis paints a challenging picture for Republicans with roughly a month remaining before voters head to the polls.
The data he cited shows the Democratic advantage has not only held but expanded over the past year, tripling from three points to nine. Enten stressed that the trend shows no sign of fading, describing the Democratic wave as one that appears to still be building.
For Republicans, the takeaway from Enten’s segment was clear: the historical track record, combined with the current polling average, suggests the party faces an uphill battle to hold on to the House, with the Senate potentially in play as well.
