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'Blue Wave' Collapses Again as Trump-Backed Candidate Scores Victory in PA

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For months, the left has been predicting a “blue wave”: The mass rejection of President Donald Trump and his allies during the 2018 midterm elections.

According to that prediction, Trump’s election was just a fluke, but American voters are preparing to correct their “mistake” by choosing candidates who oppose him and his policies this year.

If a primary race in Pennsylvania is any indication, however, voters might not be in a hurry to close the door on the president after all.

A Trump-backed candidate has just won an important primary on the path to the Senate, providing an important clue that Trump may still have popular influence after all.

According to The Hill, Republican Lou Barletta won against primary challenger Jim Christiana on Tuesday, which means that he will have a chance at removing incumbent Senator Bob Casey Jr. this November.

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Barletta, who is currently a congressman, won the primary with 63 percent of the vote — and it’s likely that Trump’s endorsement helped.

“An early supporter of Trump’s during the 2016 election, Barletta jumped into the Senate race with the full backing of the president,” The Hill explained. “Trump touted Barletta as a ‘great guy’ at a Pennsylvania rally earlier this year, and endorsed him in February.”

“Days ahead of Tuesday’s primary, Trump recorded a robocall for Barletta, lauding the congressman as an immigration hard-liner and touting his support for the GOP’s tax plan,” the outlet continued.

If the Democrat and mainstream media theory of an upcoming “blue wave” is correct, that endorsement would have sent voters running from Barletta, not toward him.

Do you think there will be a "blue wave" of Democrat victories in November?

Based on the popular narrative, even Republicans have become disillusioned with Trump and want nothing to do with him or his allies. Yet in this case, the president’s connection to Barletta seemed to only push the candidate to victory.

 The Republican still has a tough battle against the incumbent Democrat, however.

“Casey, who has served in the upper chamber since 2007, is one of 10 Senate Democrats up for reelection in a state Trump won in 2016,” reported The Hill.

“But while Pennsylvania trended red in 2016, Trump only won the state by less than 1 point,” the news magazine continued.

The ultimate test of whether Trump’s coattails still carry influence will of course be in November. In close races such as Pennsylvania’s, predicting the general election results months in advance is only slightly more scientific than reading tea leaves.

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But that’s kind of the point: The left has pinned their hopes on an alleged “blue wave” based more on emotion than any firm data. There just isn’t that much evidence that voters are fleeing from Trump, yet this keeps being repeated anyway… most likely in hopes of rallying Democrats for a strong turnout in November.

One of the biggest lessons of the chaotic 2016 race was that pollsters and pundits are not magical wizards. “Experts” seem to be horribly out of touch with actual voters, as demonstrated by the 97 percent chance they gave Hillary Clinton to win the White House.

Spoilers: She lost. It turns out that talking heads didn’t actually have their fingers on the pulse of the people. Now, having not learned their lesson, the same pundits are earnestly predicting a blue wave to sweep the nation this year, but so far it looks like empty conjecture.

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Benjamin Arie is an independent journalist and writer. He has personally covered everything ranging from local crime to the U.S. president as a reporter in Michigan before focusing on national politics. Ben frequently travels to Latin America and has spent years living in Mexico.




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