Mid-Term Losses

There are three big reasons a party wins a lot of House and/or Senate seats.

1) The other party’s President is unpopular.
2) The President has coat tails.
3) A correction of one of the first two.

A correction is often the result of one party winning seats in districts they normally wouldn’t, but, because of the environment, they have. The experts attempt to come up with all sorts of reasons why a President loses seats at a mid-term, but the reason is usually due to a correction.

When a new President has been elected (since 1912) his party has gained 20+ House seats 8 times, for an average gain of 43 seats. In the next election his party has lost an average of 40 seats. Five of the other new Presidents had an average of a 4 seat loss when elected. In the next election they averaged losing 6 seats. The lone exception to this is Bill Clinton. He had no coat tails in 1992 and lost a lot of seats in 1994. Seven of the eight largest seat losses have been after big gains.

The last two times when a party has made big gains in consecutive elections they lost 18 and 26 seats in the next one. This has happened to popular President like Lyndon Johnson, Franklin Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan.

There are a significant number of Republican skewing seats currently held by Democrats. In a neutral or Republican skewing environment the Democrats would suffer big losses. It’s a Republican environment right now. So even if the Democrats can make the environment more neutral they’re unlikely to stave off the losses.

In 2006 the Republicans were suffering from ethical investigations, a war going badly, Hurricane Katrina, and deficits. Despite a big cash advantage and some distance from the ethics and Katrina problems they couldn’t reverse this.

In 2008 the Republicans were suffering from a faltering economy, an unpopular President, and a war going badly. The war turned around, but the economy got worse. We’ll never know how the Republicans would’ve done if the financial meltdown had occurred in November instead of September.

The Democrats are facing a poor economy and America’s anger over the way the Democrats are governing. The Democrats can address these situations, while there was nothing the Republicans could do about Katrina or the ethics violations. One thing the Democrats are unlikely to reverse is how they’ve energized Republican voters. In fact all of these factors seem to be skewing worse for the Democrats in the last several months.

The line in 2006 and 2008 was moved far enough that the Republicans took no Democratic Senate seats or any House seats in 2006. Four of the five seats the Republicans took in 2008 were long time seats they lost in 2006. The fifth was a congressman who is now spending 13 years in prison. The Republicans capture only one long time Democratic seat in 2008 and, as of now, no Republican is facing jail time.

A rout may be inevitable. And the Republicans might lose only a small handful of seats.