The Myth of Coat Tails

The Democrats believe that a strong showing by Barack Obama will have coat tails that will win a bunch of seats for the Democrats. I’ve already shown that Presidents have much shorter coattails in re-elections, so I’ll look at how congress does compared to the President’s performance.

In the last three elections congressional performance has tracked very closely with Presidential performance. Obama overachieved by a bit. This is what Democrats are hoping for.


When we look at Bill Clinton’s elections things get murkier. The Presidential vote totals were low because of Ross Perot. So there were people voting for parties in congress that voted for him. What’s noteable is that even though Clinton increased his margin from around 6 million to 7.5 million, congressional Democrats saw their margin shrink from 5 million to less than 300,000. Their performance yielded 258 seats in 1992, but only 206 in 1996. So, while Bill Clinton was successful, congressional Democrats were not.


If the GOP had put up a stronger candidate than Bob Dole this election might have been winnable. Clinton really didn’t win the showdown with Republicans. Republicans lost only 2 of the 54 seats they won in 1994. Bob Dole lost this election.

If we go back to earlier elections the coat tails myth gets completely debunked.


Despite some one sided victories in the Presidential races, the GOP never translated that into congressional races. Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon dramatically increased their margins of victory in re-elections, but both actually lost ground in the congressional races. If the Republicans could win the Presidency by 18 points and lose Congress by 6 points, there’s no guarantee Obama will take anyone with him if he does well.