(CNN) Winning is everything in elections, but expectations can make a tough loss feel like a gut punch or a surprise victory the thing of legend.

Pretty much nobody, including his own staff, thought Donald Trump was going to beat Hillary Clinton in 2016, which made his victory all the more surprising.

We're starting to see perceptions of a new lock in 2018: that Democrats will see a wave and take control of the House of Representatives.

And that could be both good and bad news for them.

There's a good probability that so many people assumed Clinton would win in 2016 that they didn't turn out to vote. In hindsight, they might have. That's conjecture, of course, but it's not a radical idea to say that if Clinton had been seen as less of a lock, she might have generated more excitement.