Midweek midterm elections update for February 7th - Who Would Control Congress today?
Bottom Line: We're up to our 4th midterm election update & there are big changes this week. There are no shortage of individual races with their own dynamics but without a doubt the big picture about whether the Democrats will retake control of Congress will be the biggest story of the year (especially with the potential promise of impeachment of President Trump as incentive for desirous Democrats). Midterm elections are more complicated to project than individual races for two specific reasons. The lay of the land in the Senate is always different based on the six-year terms and while House seats do come up every two years, district maps have become increasingly partisan over the years leaving fewer naturally competitive seats based on the political makeup of a given district. That being said...Here's what history tells us about midterm elections:
Since the advent of the current two-party system (39 midterm elections) we've averaged the President's party losing 4 Senate seats and 30 seats in the House. If that happens this year Democrats would retake control of both chambers of Congress. Democrats only need to flip two Senate seats to retake control and they need 24 seats in the House. History is on the side of the Democrats reclaiming control going into this cycle.
There are only three times that the incumbent President's party has gained seats (1934 during FDR's first term, 1998 during Bill Clinton's second term and 2002 during George W. Bush's first term) thus only 3 out of 39 midterm elections have resulted in the President's party gaining seats. Here's another way of looking at it... History suggests there's a 92% chance Democrats will gain Congressional seats this year. The question becomes how many. That's where it's helpful to look at the history of generic ballot polls and outcomes. These are the past four cycles:
The first number is the average generic ballot polling on Election Day and the second is the actual result:
- 2014: GOP +2.4 - GOP +5.7 = GOP+3.3%
- 2010: GOP +9.4 - GOP +6.8 = GOP -2.6%
- 2006: DEM +11.5 - DEM +7.9 = DEM -3.6%
- 2002: GOP +1.7 - GOP +4.6 = GOP +2.9%
The first takeaway is that the polls average being off by about 3%. There's no particular rhyme or reason politically (polls were overly representative of both parties twice). So next let's try to see what cycle this one most resembles. As of today, the generic ballot says...
- Current: DEM: +4.5%
The week featured another huge decline in the Democrats advantage as Democrats dropped another 3.4% this week. While still sporting a decent 4.5% advantage, that's down from a double-digit lead prior to the partial government shutdown. What are the implications? Last week at this stage in the process the Democrat's lead suggested a cycle that would have been a potential mix of the Republican's 2010 & 2014 performances. Were that level of performance to occur Democrats would claim 38 House seats and 7 Senate seats which would be plenty to retake control of both chambers of Congress. This week this more closely resembles a mix of the 2002. Were that to happen - Democrats would be on pace to add 8 seats in the House and 2 in the Senate. That outcome would leave Republicans in control of the House with Democrats flipping the Senate.
The major caveat is that the Senate map is highly unfavorable for Democrats this year. We'll need to wait until we're past the primaries and can track individual races to have a clearer picture of what the playing field looks like.
This is the first time in this cycle that Democrats aren't in position to regain complete control of Congress. All of the recent data has suggested that the President has the upper hand in negotiations on funding, immigration and infrastructure. As such it could continue to prove politically disadvantageous to not work with the administration on these issues (it certainly has so far).