U.S. midterms: Why a Republican ‘wave’ never happened BBC: Justin Buchler, associate professor of political science, said that previous midterm election results may have created a “default” and “baseline” expectation that the Republican victory would be greater than it was. “I think a lot of people got ahead of themselves with their predictions,” Buchler said. “Generally people make statements that are not backed up by data, and each side sort of has incentives for a little bit of cheerleading. I think one of the lessons from past elections was to be a little more cautious about these kinds of predictions. People have not learned that lesson.” |