USA 2020 Elections: Thread

[grarpamp]

> Biden-Dems losing numbers...

The 2022 House Midterm By The Numbers

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2022/07/05/the_2022_house_midterm_by_the_numbers_147840.html

Midterm elections involve high stakes, a great deal of groundless
guessing, and lots of numbers – oddly similar to lotteries. Unlike
lotteries, though, the many numbers associated with midterm elections
are meaningful. The six meaningful midterm “lotto” numbers below
should help historically ground your anticipation of what is likely or
unlikely to happen in this year’s House elections, as well as set the
eventual outcome in its historical perspective. You will have to use
your imagination about the numbered ping-pong balls and the machine
mixing them up.

On to the all-important numbers.

Our first number is 7.

Since 1912 when the size of the House was fixed at 435 seats, there
have been 27 midterm elections. As most everyone knows, the
president’s party gained seats in only three of these (1934, 1998, and
2002). But in four additional midterms, in-party’s losses were minimal
(fewer than ten seats). 7 glimmers of hope for Democrats.

Our second number is 58.

The 7 in-party success story midterms are ordered in Table 1 by the
net number of seats gained or lost by the president’s party. Gallup’s
presidential approval ratings immediately prior to the election are
included, with two exceptions. These are Coolidge’s 1926 and FDR’s
1934 midterms that pre-date Gallup’s collection of approval ratings.

In each of these 7 midterm success stories, presidents were very
popular. Approval ratings were in the mid-60s for three and likely a
fourth – that being Kennedy in 1962. His mid-October rating was a
strong 61%, but it missed the boost he received from the resolution of
the Cuban missile crisis. The crisis occurred after the October poll,
but before the election. In his first post-midterm poll in late
November, Kennedy’s rating had soared to 74%. His approval on election
day was probably in the mid to high 60s.

The two presidents on the list with unmeasured approval marks,
Coolidge and FDR, were certainly very popular in their midterms. Both
midterms were bracketed by presidential landslides. The list’s lowest
approval rating of a president is President George H.W. Bush in 1990
at 58%. To get on the midterm success story list, it takes a
presidential approval rating of at least 58%.

Our third number is 41.

In contrast to success stories of popular presidents, parties of
unpopular presidents routinely take a beating. The midterms of the
eight least popular presidents in the 19 midterms since 1946 are
listed in Table 2. The table starts with 1946, the first midterm in
which Gallup’s presidential approval ratings were collected.
Presidential unpopularity ranged from the mildly unpopular Obama (45%
approval) in 2010 to the extremely unpopular Truman (33% approval) in
1946. In seven of these eight midterms with unpopular presidents, the
in-party lost more than 25 seats. In two, losses exceeded 55 seats.

2022 easily makes the list of midterms with unpopular presidents.
Biden’s approval rating took a dive in late summer of 2021 and has
slowly sunk even lower. The multiple reasons for his unpopularity are
too numerous to catalog here, but they span the three crucial
dimensions of dissatisfaction with his record (including the economy),
his policy ineffectiveness and extremism across a wide range of
issues, and a lack of confidence in his leadership.

For whatever mix of reasons, Biden’s presidential approval ratings are
dismal. In the RCP daily average of polls, Biden’s approval has been
less than 43% since January 2, 2022 (as of July 4th, for 183
consecutive days) and less than 41% since May 25, 2022. His approval
ratings in Gallup have been 43% or lower for ten straight months
(since September 2021). Gallup observed that no first-term president
from Eisenhower in 1954 to Trump in 2018 has had a lower approval
rating than Biden’s in June of the second year of his term. None
lower. Biden’s rating for June was 41%.

Our fourth number is 0.

Though most attention in 2020 was focused on the controversial
presidential contest and then on the 50-50 tie in Senate after the
pair of controversial Senate runoffs in Georgia, attention in more
normal times would have been drawn to the razor-thin party division
for control of the House. Democrats won 222 seats and Republicans 213,
providing Democrats with a 5 seat majority.

A major question for the 2022 midterm is whether Democrats can hold
the House. Can they avoid a net seat loss of five seats or more to the
Republicans? In the 27 midterms since 1914, as Table 1 showed, the
president’s party has only avoided losing fewer than five seats on
four occasions. In three (1934, 1998, and 2002) they gained seats, and
in a fourth (1986) they lost four seats. As we noted in Table 1, the
presidents in these midterms were very popular (63% approval or
better). Biden does not reside in that hemisphere. At 41%, he is 22
points short. With the consistency of his low ratings, the fact that
many who disapprove of his performance do so strongly (i.e., not just
chants of “Let’s Go Brandon”), and the multifaceted grounds for
disapproval, the probability of Democrats maintaining their House
majority is 0 (zero).

Our fifth number is 34.

With Biden’s poor approval ratings, placing him in the middle or lower
in Table 2's list of unpopular presidents, the real question is how
many seats Republicans will gain. To this point, we have focused on
one important determinant of midterm outcomes, the popularity or
unpopularity of the president. But a second important factor is the
number of seats each party currently holds and the limits of the
party’s competitiveness.

Both parties have competitive limits imposed by the partisan stability
of American politics. Some districts are realistically “off the table”
for a party. Even under the best of circumstances, the party stands no
real chance of winning them. In the aggregate, this creates upper and
lower limits for how many seats a party can realistically win or lose.
The limits can change with time, especially after realignments alter
party competitiveness, but are otherwise are quite resilient.

Table 3 lists the top ten strongest Republican Party outcomes over the
45 House elections (on-year and midterm) held in the 90 years since
FDR’s election of 1932. As several others have also noted (see Josh
Kraushaar, “How Big a Wave can House Republicans expect?” National
Journal, 6/23/22), the upper limit for Republicans has been 247 seats.
The GOP has reached into the 240s in four elections, but topped out at
247 seats in 2014. In 2022, Republicans can reach their historical
competitiveness limit of 247 with a gain of 34 seats over their 2020
showing. Any gains beyond 34 would be a historic breakthrough.

Our sixth and final number is 13.

In reviewing the list of midterm seat losses for the president’s
party, Democrats might take heart in the results of Obama’s 2014
midterm. Obama’s approval rating of only 42% that year is comparable
to Biden’s low ratings this year, and the Republicans in 2014 gained
only 13 seats. Among midterms with unpopular presidents, this was an
unusually light loss.

Why did Democrats lose so few seats that year with Obama’s ratings so
low, and could this happen again in 2022? Could the Democrats with
their highly unpopular president escape 2022 with only minor bruises?
At this point, many Democrats might celebrate Republicans picking up
only a dozen or so seats.

This is not going to happen, and Table 4 explains why. The table lists
the twelve midterm elections since 1934 in which a Democrat was in the
White House. The midterms are ordered by the number of seats
Republicans held after the midterm. It also indicates how many seats
Republicans held coming into the midterm and the seat change produced
by the midterm. As in Table 3, the 247 Republican limit is clear. It
is also clear that Republican seat gains in 2014 were as small as they
were because Republicans at 234 seats went into the election already
very close to their 247 historical limit. The gain of only 13 seats
reflects the constraints of the competitiveness limit.

In 2022, Republicans enter the midterm with much more room from their
competitiveness limit than they had in 2014 and with many reasons to
think that their 247 limit may no longer be their limit. There is
significant movement of working class voters across racial and ethnic
groups toward the Republicans. There is movement in party
affiliations. In the end, history regularly constrains us; but, on
occasion, history can also be made.

So to recap, your House-Midterm Lotto Numbers for 2022 are: 0, 7, 13,
34, 41 and 58.