One of the most reliable rules of American politics is that a president’s first-term midterm elections are bad for the president’s party. Since 1950, the president’s party has gained seats in the first midterm only once, in 2002, the first national election after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. …
Midterms are supposed to be referenda, a measure of whether voters are happy with the people in power. But right now, Biden and Trump and 2020 all loom over the year’s midterms. It may be that some voters see this midterm not as a referendum but as a choice between two not very palatable alternatives.
Add in a complicated issue environment and newly drawn congressional district lines and you have a recipe for a November that right now looks confusing and harder than usual to predict. CONTINUED
Dante Chinni, NBC News
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