I hate to disappoint you, but US politics come with a number of intricacies that make it such that “not failing too hard” is a success. The fact is that across the 50 different state election system, the set of seats going to election are different each year without apparent pattern.
Mix in our good fellow Jerry Mandarin to twist the democratic process to your favour, the Democrat party not putting forward campaigns and resources in races they feel they already lost and you are set up for the facist party to take over. If most seats up for grabs are expected to lean conservative, then even small losses can be huge accomplishments (+5 gain nationally it sounds like)
I hate to disappoint you, but US politics come with a number of intricacies that make it such that “not failing too hard” is a success. The fact is that across the 50 different state election system, the set of seats going to election are different each year without apparent pattern.
Mix in our good fellow Jerry Mandarin to twist the democratic process to your favour, the Democrat party not putting forward campaigns and resources in races they feel they already lost and you are set up for the facist party to take over. If most seats up for grabs are expected to lean conservative, then even small losses can be huge accomplishments (+5 gain nationally it sounds like)