‘The Word “Wave” Has No Application’: MSNBC’s O’Donnell Nearly Giddy Over Democrats Not Losing Bigger

The Democrats aren’t losing by as much as people expected them to, said Rachel Maddow on Tuesday night as results were still rolling in, and her MSNBC colleague Lawrence O’Donnell was cautiously pretty jazzed about it.

A recurring point in MSNBC’s midterm election coverage on Tuesday night was the subject of whether the “red wave” predicted by Republicans — or even just the sweeping wins predicted in polling and analysis — was actually coming to full fruition.

Although a decisive victory for Ron DeSantis in Florida that included major gains in one of the bluest parts of the state left the panel of hosts and anchors with the realization that Florida and Miami-Dade appear to be “red” now, the rotating group anchored by Maddow repeatedly circled back to the topic of the Republicans not winning as hard as they may have hoped, or Democrats losing as catastrophically as they feared.

When Maddow noted at one point that it “does seem like Republicans are probably not having the fireworks they expected to be having already by this time of the night,” O’Donnell could barely contain his enthusiasm for the lesser losing of Democrats.

“The word ‘wave’ has no application yet to what we’re seeing,” he said with a only somewhat constrained grin.

Maddow interjected, “it might still, but it doesn’t now.”

“It might not, ever,” O’Donnell continued. “This might feel more like the edge of a lake, you know, with it just moving up an inch or two here or there.”

Co-host Nicolle Wallace giggled at the comment, and a short time later she circled back to the point, saying that the media “fell into this trap” of thinking inflation would be a bigger issue this election in predicting that Democrats would lose by more than they are losing by so far.

Watch the clip above, via MSNBC.