Sizing up the blue wave: From the Politics Desk

Welcome to From the Politics Desk, a daily newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team’s latest reporting and analysis from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign trail.

In today’s edition, Scott Bland takes stock of the scope of Democrats’ gains in the House. Plus, Alexandra Marquez examines how the party’s midterm success could affect the next presidential contest.

Democrats’ performance in Tuesday’s election was obviously big — you can’t reach an estimated 259 House seats without sizable national margins.

A historical look shows just how massive the results were, too.

Democrats are on track for the second-biggest House popular vote edge in the last 50 years. This will also be the largest midterm margin for one party since 1974, when the country punished the Republican Party in the first election after Richard Nixon resigned following the Watergate scandal.

With more votes still left to count, especially in Democratic-leaning California, House Democratic candidates have captured 55.3% of the national vote, compared to 43.3% for Republicans. That’s an 12-point margin — more than Democrats in 2008 (10.5 points) or 2018 (8.6 points) and more than Republicans in their wave years of 1994 (6.8 points), 2010 (6.6 points) and…

Original source: https://www.nbcnews.com/health