Wave elections in the United States

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Wave elections in the United States are elections in which a political party makes major gains. Based on the "red states and blue states" color coding convention in use since 2000, wave elections have often been described as either "blue waves" or "red waves" depending on which party makes significant gains, referring to a major increase in seats held by either the Democratic Party, associated with blue, or the Republican Party, associated with red. Wave elections usually happen during midterm elections. For instance, the Republican Revolution occurred during the 1994 midterm elections, in which Newt Gingrich rose to prominence as the leader of the House Republican Conference, and the Republican Party regained control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate during the presidency of Bill Clinton. There is no consensus definition of what level of gains is necessary to constitute a wave election, but the most recent midterm election year widely described as a wave election was...

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