Midterm Elections – Is the ‘red wave’ inevitable?

Posted on 3 June 2022

15 min read

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As David Axelrod once said, “the one corrective in a democracy is the vote”. The next time the American people will have a chance to correct their democracy is on November 8, 2022. All 435 House seats and 35 Senate seats are up for election. Democrats have a very slim majority in both chambers – House[i] and the Senate[ii] – of the 117th Congress. The question is, can they maintain their power after the midterm elections?

History

There is an unwritten rule in American politics: the President’s party loses seats in the midterm elections.[iii] Since the Second World War, the United States (US) has had 19 midterm elections. In the House, the President’s party has lost seats in 17 cases. The two exceptions are the midterm elections of 1998 and 2002. It is important to note that both elections were unique in their ways. The former was right before the impeachment of the 42nd President of the US, Bill Clinton. The latter was after the tragic events of 9/11 when the then-President George W. Bush’s approval rating was at record highs.[iv]

In the Senate, on the other hand, the party of the President usually performs slightly better. While the House of Representatives are elected for two years, the mandate of the Senators is for six years. Their elections are divided into three cycles, which is why only a third of the seats are up for elections. Therefore, flipping the Senate is a little more complicated. The President’s party has been able to avoid losing seats six times out of nineteen since WW2.

Division

Democracies around the world are facing challenges. According to a report from the Centre for the Future of Democracy at the University of Cambridge, “across the globe, democracy is in a state of malaise”.[v] The report adds that – on record – discontent with democracy was at the “highest level” in 2019.[vi] Sadly, the US is no exception in this regard.

Just days before the inauguration of Joe Biden, nearly half of likely voters said that “the country will have another civil war”.[vii] The 46th President of the US wanted “to make politics normal again”[viii] and “restore the soul” of America.[ix] However, it seems that President Biden has not been able to unite his deeply divided country so far.

In December of 2021, a member of an advisory panel to the Central Intelligence Agency said that the US is “closer to civil war than any of us would like to believe”.[x] On top of that, according to a Quinnipiac poll, nearly 6 in 10 Americans believe that the democratic system of the US “is in danger of collapse”.[xi] Furthermore, a recent NBC poll found that more than 7 in 10 Americans think the nation is going in the wrong direction.[xii] Undeniably, the leader of the free world is in trouble.

The numbers

Numbers are not on the Democrats’ side, either. In January, Joe Biden’s yearly approval rating was an appalling 33 percent.[xiii] Since then, the number has improved some; now, 38 percent of Americans approve of the President’s job.[xiv] To put that into perspective, his approval rating was 57 percent in January of 2021.[xv] The Party, too, is experiencing difficulties. Democrats were up by 5.6 percentage points in June of 2021.[xvi] However, the party’s support has shrunk significantly, and now the Republicans are up by 2.1 percentage points.

On the economic front, the President is facing challenges. The national average for a gallon of gasoline is $4.17 – that is at an all-time record level.[xvii] According to the Moody’s Analytics chief economist, Joe Biden’s recent ban on Russian oil imports could raise the prices above $5 a gallon in the US.[xviii] On top of that, inflation is out of control. In America, the annual inflate was 7.5% in January of 2022. That is the highest since February of 1982.[xix] According to the London-based ICE Benchmark Administration, inflation might hit even higher levels in the US.[xx] Not surprisingly, only 37 percent of Americans approve of Biden’s handling of the economy.[xxi]

On the foreign policy front, the President has problems, too. According to a Pew Research Poll, the Biden administration’s handling of the situation in Afghanistan was perceived negatively by the public.[xxii] 42% of Americans think the administration has done a poor job, 29% say the administration has done only a fair job, and about a quarter (26%) say the administration has done an excellent or good job. The recent Ukrainian is perceived more positively. According to a PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist poll, 52 percent of Americans said that they support how Biden is handling the situation in Ukraine.[xxiii]

Other signs

Democrats have more to worry about: the number of House of Representatives retiring is not seen in decades.[xxiv] By February, 30 Democrats had already announced that they would not seek reelection in November. That is the highest number since 1992. To put it into a different perspective, the number of retirements in this cycle is more than the two last elections together.

Besides, in autumn, the result of the special gubernatorial elections was a cold shower for Democrats. In Virginia, Republicans had not been able to win since 2009.[xxv] However, Glenn Youngkin pulled off a shocking victory by keeping the former President at arm’s length and bashing McAuliffe – Democratic nominee – on local issues. The GOP was alarmingly close, too, in New Jersey. However, in the end, Republicans came up short.[xxvi]

Our experts

During the European Institute for International Law and International Relations’ recent symposium[xxvii], Dr. James Bacchus and Prof Dr. Richard D. Anderson Jr. expressed their views about the upcoming midterm election. Dr. James Bacchus believes that “for a combination of reasons” Democrats “might do even worse than historically”. Prof Dr. Richard D. Anderson Jr. said that he is “generally in agreement that the Democrats are in trouble”.

Possible consequences

It is safe to say that the US is going through one of its hyper-partisan eras. When Joe Biden came into office, he had two main goals: first, pass a very much needed bill that would fix the country’s infrastructure, and second, pass his signature social safety net legislation, the Build Back Better Act. While the former had bipartisan support, the latter was heavily opposed by the Republicans and moderate Democrats. If the GOP can take either chamber of Congress, it can create government gridlock; in other words, passing a big piece of legislation will be more difficult.

The US is also more likely to have a government shutdown when different parties hold the Presidency and the Congress. Over the last three decades, there were three shutdowns that lasted for more than 15 days – President Donald Trump (December 22, 2018 to January 25, 2019 – 34 days), President Barack Obama (October 1 to October. 17 – 16 days), President Bill Clinton (December 16, 1995, to January 6, 1996, – 21 days).[xxviii]

[i] https://pressgallery.house.gov/member-data/party-breakdown

[ii] https://www.senate.gov/history/partydiv.htm

[iii] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-the-presidents-party-almost-always-has-a-bad-midterm/

[iv] https://news.gallup.com/poll/116500/presidential-approval-ratings-george-bush.aspx

[v] https://www.cam.ac.uk/system/files/report2020_003.pdf

[vi] Ibid.

[vii] https://zogbyanalytics.com/news/997-the-zogby-poll-will-the-us-have-another-civil-war

[viii] https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/05/politics/joe-biden-donald-trump-2020-normal/index.html

[ix] https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/01/20/inaugural-address-by-president-joseph-r-biden-jr/

[x] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/20/us-closer-to-civil-war-new-book-barbara-walter-trump-capitol-attack

[xi] https://poll.qu.edu/poll-release?releaseid=3831

[xii] https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/590951-majorities-in-new-poll-say-us-headed-in-wrong-direction