In political handicapping you often have to reconcile a conflict between macro and micro dynamics. The macro, or big-picture factors, focus on the sitting president, with his popularity highly relevant to the election outcome. The micro factors include seats and incumbents that are up for election, local political circumstances, and the demographics and voting patterns of individual states and districts. It is not at all uncommon to find macro factors favoring one party and micro factors favoring the other.
The 2018 midterms are a vivid example of the macro opposing the micro. CONT.
Charlie Cook