Historical perspective on the election results

[Spider Jerusalem]

the last time that a party that had occupied the White House for two consecutive terms won seats in their second midterm election? 1906 (when the Republicans picked up seats in the Senate but lost them in the House). The Democratic Party lost seats in Wilson's second term, FDR's second term, under LBJ, and Clinton. The Republicans lost seats under Coolidge, Eisenhower, Reagan and Bush II (1974 omitted because Watergate and Nixon's resignation skew the picture).

[Drunken Irishman]

1. Rachel showed a stat that the incumbent party loses, on average, six seats in 2nd term midterm...

Well that's roughly what hit the Democrats this go around.

[Suich]

2. Rachel Maddow covered this.

I think the big difference is Citizen's United, gutting of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Tea Party, who have no clue how government works.

Just my 2 cents...

[Art_from_Ark]

3. Clinton won 5 House seats in 1998

and had neither a net gain nor a net loss in the Senate.

[Proud Public Servant]

4. If we only look at the Senate

Last edited Fri Nov 7, 2014, 11:16 AM - Edit history (1)

You're right: this was to be expected, and is consistent with historical trends in a presidents second term.

It's the governors races that are a warning shot across the bow: we lost governor races in three blue states, and failed to unseat three of the four most unpopular governors in the country -- and two of those three were in blue states, too. We lost five key races in our own backyard; that's a problem.