A historic midterm election was won by President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party.
Democrats have maintained their majority in the Senate, doing no worse than holding constant at 50 seats and possibly picking up one, and they are certain to keep any net losses in the House to around 10 percent.
The opposition party is intended to shine during the midterm elections. That should be the case more so when there is unprecedented inflation and a majority of Americans believe that the nation is heading in the wrong direction.
Instead, Biden and the Democrats are poised to have one of the four most successful midterm elections for the party in power in the previous century.
So what actually happened? It’s very obvious that Republican candidates in the general election suffered from voter backlash for being too extreme on issues like abortion or for having too strong ties to former President Donald Trump.
The election outcomes were nevertheless incredibly odd. I reviewed the record books again. In the president’s first midterm election, the president’s party has just three times since 1922 gained (or lost no) Senate seats and lost fewer than 10 House seats.
The president’s party is regarded to have accomplished great things in 1934, 1962, and 2002, all of which are seen as significant outliers from the rule that the party in power typically loses seats in midterm elections.
The success of Democrats this year has also trickled down to the state level. We already know that this will mark the first time since 1934 that the president’s party had a net gain of governorships in a president’s first midterm election, based on anticipated contests. Although Ronald Reagan’s GOP suffered significant losses in the Senate that year, 1986 is the only other midterm election since 1934 when the president’s party gained a net number of governorships.
If the current trends continue, it’s shocking to see how unpopular Biden is right now. Exit poll results showed a 44% approval rating for him. His favorability was rated at 41%.
We don’t have any polling data from 1934, however based on the fact that Franklin Roosevelt won by landslides in both of the midterm elections, he was probably highly popular.
The presidents at the time—John F. Kennedy and George W. Bush, respectively—had approval ratings that were above 60% in the polls from 1962 and 2002.
‘Candidate problem’ for the GOP
Democrats’ potential to defy expectations this year begins with the statewide election candidates that Republicans choose to support. Several analysts, including myself, observed that Republicans appeared to have a candidate likeability issue. Republicans had low net favorability ratings in all of the important races, according to pre-election polling. Democrats fared better than their opponents in nearly every important contest.
Many of those Republicans had Trump’s support and had even declared (at least once) that they thought he had won the 2020 election. (This is untrue, of course, as Biden was elected.)
Republicans’ “candidate dilemma” in the 2022 midterm elections is confirmed by exit polls. More people said the Republican candidate’s views were too extreme than said the same about the Democratic candidate in every Senate race that Inside Elections had rated as a toss-up or only tilting toward a party before the election (with the exception of Georgia).
This is also evident in elections for governor. In several blue or swing states, Republicans put 2020 election sceptics forward as governor candidates. Only Republican Kari Lake of Arizona has any chance of winning; none of the others have been predicted winners.
Given that approximately 60% of voters – both in pre-election surveys and the exit polls – believe Biden was legitimately elected, it may not be surprising that these GOP candidates were unsuccessful.
Despite this, Democrats appear to have made incredible progress in the 2022 midterm elections, especially in light of how unpopular Biden was according to polls.
The last two Democratic presidents (Bill Clinton in 1994 and Barack Obama in 2010) with first-midterm approval ratings comparable to Biden’s saw their party lose a net of more than 50 House seats, at least five Senate seats, and at least five governorships.
