A blue wave in next year’s midterms might not flip that many seats. Here’s why.

“Democrats need enough seats that they can, once the gavels are in their hands, they can govern, they can push back on the Trump administration, they can push back on the Senate if we don’t take back the Senate, and then they can govern effectively from the House,” said Dan Sena, a strategist who ran the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2018 and is optimistic about the party’s chances next year. “And so they need that majority that is large enough to do that.”