Much ink has been split over the Democrats' dim prospects of holding the US House of Representatives next year. We think more is at stake. Our analysis suggests the Democrats are approaching a watershed which may define the future of the party. For now, though, let's start with the easy topic: the outlook for November 2022.
The Washington Post links the Democrats' poor midterm outlook to President Biden's low approval ratings, which are the lowest since Truman, barring those of President Trump.
Approval, however, is overrated.
In the last twenty-six midterm elections covering the past century, the party in power lost seats twenty-three times, that is, in almost 90% of cases. The three times the party of the incumbent president gained seats occurred during FDR's first term as he tackled the Great Depression, George W. Bush's first term in the wake of 9/11, and most tellingly, Bill Clinton's second term, a period of exceptional prosperity for the US in the post-Vietnam era. The latter result will prove central to our next post.
The typical midterm losses of seats are huge, averaging 35 for the party of the sitting president. Given the Democrats’ slim five seat hold on power in the House, the odds of retaining the majority are vanishingly small regardless of the President's approval ratings.
Of course, political approval or disapproval can mitigate or exacerbate the underlying fundamentals. As a statistical matter, each 10 points of net approval (approve minus disapprove) is worth about 4 seats. As it stands, the President's -9 net approval rating implies a loss of 38 seats using a linear regression model. Nevertheless, even if the President's net approval rose from its current dismal level to Bill Clinton's impressive +28, the result would be a swing of only 15 seats, yielding a net loss of 23 seats in aggregate. The Republicans would still emerge comfortably in control.
Bottom line: Public approval will not save the Democrats' majority.
Source: 538, US House of Representatives
More recent history suggests an even harsher drubbing. During Bill Clinton's first term, the Democrats lost 54 seats in the House at the midterms. Obama's first term was even worse, clocking up a loss of 64 seats, the worst since FDR's second term. Based on the track record of the prior two Democratic presidents in their first terms, the Democrats might expect to lose anywhere between 50 and 65 seats. Put another way, a midterm thrashing for the Democrats would be nothing new, only a repeat of recent history.
The issue is therefore not the loss of seats, which are unlikely to be unusual by recent standards for the left. Rather, it is the level which matters.
Should the Democrats lose more than 58 seats, their representation in the House will fall to its lowest level in a century and bring into question the viability of the Democrats as a national party. The left has suffered this fate in Britain, and even more so in Hungary. This is the very definition of Corbynization as I use it: the positioning of the Democratic Party so far left that it becomes irrelevant in the national conversation.
In our next post, we will examine the historical roots of this development and the steps the Democrats must take to avoid relegation to the sidelines.