It is frustrating to come across electoral analysts talking about the midterm elections using the kinds of traditional concepts and theories I spent a career teaching, but which have now, in the age of Donald Trump, become increasingly irrelevant.

There are three factors that matter in this year's contests, and none of them have much precedent in pre-Trump party politics.

First is not just the presence of an unpopular incumbent, but one who is spectacularly so. That unpopularity goes deeper than what Trump's 20-point "underwater" approval ratings suggest, because it is likely the majority of the population that disapproves doesn't just disapprove but thoroughly despises. It is probable that none of Trump's predecessors had been hated so passionately by so many.

The idea that far-left Democratic candidates might cushion what would otherwise be large GOP losses is another traditional political science assumption that won't hold up — the votes are going to be cast overwhelmingly out of revulsion over Trump, not fear of socialist Democrats (indeed; Trump himself is likely the single greatest factor propelling the socialist surge).

Republicans aren't just going to lose the House and Senate in a huge blue wave thanks to Trump; they might even lose races that no one thinks they will lose in deep red states (even........

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