Presidents Losing Seats Mid-term

The biggest reason why a President loses seats at the Mid-term is that he’s not on the ballot. When a candidate wins the Presidency, whether he’s an incumbent or a challenger, he usually has coat tails that sweep congressmen into office. When we look at coat tails we should look at how the President’s party does compared to the average number of seats held during the period.



When Eisenhower was elected in 1952 it was during a period where his party averaged having 199 seats in the House. The Republicans finished with 222, 23 above average. Jimmy Carter only gained 1 seat when he won, but the Democrats were already 27 above their average for this period. His 1 seat gain actually was 28 above the average. So he had the longest coat tails. When the President is re-elected the results are similar.



A President is just as likely to have long coat tails as he is to have no coat tails. There’s not a lot in between. I don’t include how Barack Obama did compared to what would be expected since the average Democratic number for this era is unknown now. I expect that when the average for this era is set, Obama’s coat tails will be as long any President.



In a mid-term year, a President isn’t running. While President Obama bragged that the difference this year is “you have me,” we can look at the mid-terms and see that the President’s party does twice as well as expected. in a Presidential year than in a mid-term year.

While the press talks about how the President’s party loses seats, the reason for that is that the President usually enters the mid-terms with more seats than his party usually has during this period. He has seats that the other party usually wins. Without his name on the ballot, the party loses those seats and reverts close to the number of seats they usually have, sometimes a little above that and sometimes a little below that. A President loses mid-term seats because he usually has a lot of seats where the voters usually vote for the other party.