Midterm elections are historically know to be bad for the party in the White House. Former president Barack Obama lost 60 seats in Congress to Republicans at his midway mark and former President Donald Trump lost more than 40 seats to Democrats in his midterm.
Flash forward to this week with inflation at a 40-year high and President Biden's approval ratings in the low 40s.
Pollsters, pundits, even people on the street were predicting a red wave, but that didn't happen.
Thomas Balcerski, presidential historian and history professor at Eastern Connecticut State University, shares some perspective on what happened.
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Mike Hydeck: So when we look back over the history of midterms, is there any specific reason why it seems they're often bad or most often bad to the party in the White House?
Thomas Balcerski: Well, you've identified a key trend in that the first term incumbent, as well as in the second term of a president, is often vulnerable in the midterm elections of that term. And it has a lot to do with how voter dissatisfaction works. I sometimes liken it to a thermometer, whereby voters are trying to see what the temperature is, is it too hot or too cold? And what voters do, particularly the undecided, independent voters, is adjust that thermometer. So it can be a large turn of the knob or it can be a small one. And I think, historically, the midterms in that first term have been a large turning, almost an overturning. But it really does depend on the issues at play. And so in this election cycle, yes, we saw a relatively small, what appears to be change in the number of seats held by Democrats and Republicans. And although we don't have the full results, it would appear that this is unusual for the small amount of tuning that the voters input into this midterm election.
Mike Hydeck: To follow up on that, one of the things that seems to be, we don't have the final numbers again, yet proving to be historic, though, is the turnout in this particular election, midterm election nationwide. A lot of the pundits are saying, so many independents came out to vote, to make their views known on this. Does that play a part in this as well, do you think?
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Thomas Balcerski: Well, there's not only the question of political affiliation, and thus how polling worked leading up to the election, misleading so many people, but also the kinds of people who came out generationally. This was the first midterm election where Generation Z, that demographic that's somewhere in the mid-teens to their early 20s, was able to vote in numbers. And what we've seen from that group, as well as those younger millennial voters under 30, is that they came out in large numbers, and they came out strongly for the Democratic Party. What's also interesting about that particular demographic is while they did vote Democratic, for the most part, polling in terms of their approval around Democratic party policies, and particularly President Biden was much more mixed. And what makes this unusual, both in turnout and in outcome is that that same demographic voted for a candidate they only had mixed or lukewarm feelings, or, as we say, now the "Meh" voter. So that's who showed up. Of course, independents showed up in great numbers, as did Democrats and Republicans variously. So it depends really on the state and the district level to explain various turnout. But when you when you do some exit polling, as, as we've done now, after the fact, when you sort of asked what the issues were at play, it seems that each sort of individual each generation really had a different reason for voting.
Mike Hydeck: So let's talk about former President Trump, how much do you believe he played a role in both the turnout in this and then hitting the stump and endorsing candidates in each of the cities? Oftentimes, when a former president stumps for candidates, it can be a positive, but it seems both parties are fractured.
Thomas Balcerski: Well, that's a great point. Now I'll just focus on the Pennsylvania Senate race for a minute because we did see two former presidents and the sitting president show up in Pennsylvania the week before. So you had Donald Trump campaigning for the Republican candidate Mehmet Oz, and you had both Joe Biden and Barack Obama campaigning for the Democratic candidate for Senate, John Fetterman. And in that really important, almost bellwether race, we saw the Democratic candidate Fetterman win by actually a comfortable margin by Pennsylvania election standards. So when it came to handpicked candidates, when it came to Trump's handpicked candidates in states that have historically been battlegrounds, they did very poorly with a few exceptions. But they tended to lose in states where voters were more independent minded where the swing voter is more of a factor. Now in the deeper red, the ruby red states, actually Trump-picked candidates did very well. And that's not really been controversial or unexpected. It's really been in places where voters again, are pushing back a little bit against the president. And it also reveals how new leadership may be emerging in the process. If the president's handpicked candidates cannot succeed, what does that mean for the future of the Republican Party? On the Democratic side, President Biden had, you know, some candidates he supported in greater numbers than others, but he was less active in terms of the primary selection and in terms of endorsing folks, before that process. So in a sense, it was less of a referendum on specific picks by President Biden, or certainly by former President Obama, who had little to no role there. But it does show how turnout and how rallying the base on both sides played out and I think Democrats had the edge there.
Mike Hydeck: And it seems the Democrats came into the election process in a later time than President Trump did. One more question, former President Trump is expected to make an announcement this coming Tuesday, possibly about his 2024 intentions. Historically, has any president who lost their first reelection bid ever come back to win back his old job?
Thomas Balcerski: Well, it has happened once. So this is the famous exception in American history. We're talking about President Grover Cleveland, who did lose his reelection race in 1888. And then came back in 1892 to win a second term. There have been other former presidents who have both run again and expressed interest in running again. It's somewhat different now due to the term-limited situation. Most of the examples from American history are before that constitutional amendment that prevented a third term. So we don't have really a modern precedent here. And if you look again, at some of the recent one-term presidents who lost, we're thinking maybe in our own lifetimes of President H.W. Bush, of Jimmy Carter, their political futures effectively ended after their election loss. That is what makes Donald Trump's potential decision to announce his reelection campaign, or a new election campaign historic, but also, I think, fraught. It's hard to say now that after these midterms, the president, former president, would have the same momentum, the same political support, and especially all eyes really now for the Republican Party are on how the voters will rally around Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, who had a very good night, both in his gubernatorial run, and in terms of Florida's contribution to the GOP results. So whether the president will time, former President Trump will time his announcement accordingly, will wait somewhat, or whether he just goes full steam ahead. The next few weeks will really be interesting.
