After several months of mystery on the generic ballot, Democrats are starting to see positive signs among several indicators that a blue wave is in the making. While special elections have been a continual bright spot for Democrats since last year, the generic ballot for House candidates had ticked down in the last several months since hitting a high point of about 10 points last December, according to Civiqs data (which tends to be a little less noisy than other polling). But after tightening to about five points during parts of March, April, and May, the generic ballot has held solid at a seven-point advantage Democrats (48 to 41 percent) for the past two-plus weeks.
But even better than the Democrats’ generic ballot edge is their enthusiasm advantage.
Fully 77 percent of Democrats say they are "very enthusiastic” to vote in November, while only 64 percent of Republicans say the same—that's a yawning 13-point gap favoring Democrats.
The enthusiasm gap plus the Democrats flipping 43 state legislative seats along with major wins in Virginia and Alabama last year and Pennsylvania this year all bode well for Democrats no matter what the generic ballot reflected. But we are now starting to see the generic ballot also tick up in a positive direction for Democrats. Taken together, conditions are looking good for a big blue wave to sweep a bevy of Republicans from their seats this November.