Is a Democratic Wipeout Inevitable?

… The lesson of history is that it is extremely difficult for presidents to translate legislative success in their first year into political success in the midterm elections of their second year. Those early achievements can boost presidents in their reelection bids, but in almost all cases they have not proved an antidote to the other midterm factors that cause the president’s party to lose ground in Congress.

Failing to pass their agenda could compound the Democrats’ problems by disillusioning their base and sending a message of dysfunction to swing voters. But completing the agenda isn’t likely to save them from the president’s party’s usual midterm losses unless voters also grow more optimistic about contemporary conditions in the country—particularly the fight against COVID-19 and the economic instability flowing from the persistent pandemic. …

Maybe the most remarkable proof that current conditions outweigh legislative achievements in midterm elections is a data point that the Emory University political scientist Alan Abramowitz calculated for me from the University of Michigan’s National Election Studies covering the 1964 and 1966 elections. According to Abramowitz’s analysis of the results, those surveys found that even after Democrats created Medicare, the party’s share of the vote among seniors in House elections fell slightly from 1964 to ’66, giving the GOP a slight majority among them.

What does all of this mean for Democrats now? CONTINUED

Ronald Brownstein, The Atlantic


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