My History Can Beat Up Your Politics

There's an expectation that every midterm will be a wave. 2026 well could be, in line with 1994, 2014 or 2006. But it's not automatic. In this episode we discuss the modern reality of midterms. Party losses are getting lower on average, and what a wave is has changed.

In this episode we focus on 1990, the so-called Seinfeld Election (or a midterm about nothing * which to observers seemed to have no result) and Carter's "Disco Midterm" of 1978. Like a disco record, it went round and round, expected to be a blowout for his party, but it wasn't. Not that it was great for Carter, but it wasn't a big loss as expected.

What defines these kind of non-wave elections is that both parties could point to something. In 1990, a Minnesota GOP Senator unexpectedly looses, but a Democratic New Jersey Senator gets a frightening scare.

A look at the non wave elections, that still had consequences.

* to be clear it was named so in a POLITICO article in the 2000s, long after Seinfeld began airing as a show.

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4 years ago we said this... Call 2022 the Mick Jagger midterm - neither party got fully what they wanted. Both parties experienced win and losses. It is, so far, largely a "stave midterm" where the President's party lost less seats than expected - we've discussed a few of these on this podcast, and thus for the party expected to have lost seats a kind of win. Yet in this case as opposed to other 'stave' midterms, the President's Party looks like they will lose the house. So when is a win a win and a loss a loss? Is this like the 1970, 1990 or 1994 or 1974 elections? We discuss all this and talk about a midterm in the past.

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A normal midterm with its usual issues between the parties becomes a test for a new President when a labor strike unexpectedly reaches his desk. The opposition party gains, but so does his.

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Nixon's first presidential midterm election (the election in which the House and Senate would be up for election) would turn out to be his last, but no one knew it at the time. Nixon tried something Presidents hadn't tried and took off in Air Force One to boost GOP candidates and attack hippie "thugs" across the country. He hoped to reverse the midterm trend. He did not, and he blamed bad audio and unhelpful political science. He may have done better than he thought.

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Grover Cleveland, Woodrow Wilson and William McKinley's midterm elections are not remembered. But each one changed history in its own way. One confined a President, the other changed a party. And the third may have cemented America's place in the world.

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In the run up to the Civil War, former first lady Julia Tyler participated in a political debate. Moderns will appreciate her participation in politics as an empowered well written woman. Her cause less so.

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The midterm election that didn't. In 2002, With national security on the minds of voters and a poor message in opposition, the President's party gained seats in the House for the first time in a first-term Congressional election since FDR's time. George W. Bush's GOP also gained back the Senate.

But it's hard election to analyze. We'll try, with a little help from a former President.

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It had a short history, but within the time of the Civil War, the Confederate States had two Congressional elections. The second in 1863 (and 1864 in some states) should be seen as a midterm, and like those in the Northern states, it didn't go well for the party in power, that being the increasingly unpopular government of Jefferson Davis.

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Hoover did a difficult thing. He beat back challenges and his party won control. Until a string of congressional deaths changed the picture.

The 72nd Congress of 1931 was, as elected, a very narrow Republican , House 218 R - 217 D. Close, but for President Hoover, good enough. That is until, 14 Congressmen-elect died.

Not all at once -- that would be weird -- it was over 13 months, for all kinds of reasons but heart attacks and pneumonias leading the list. When special elections were held, it went 218 D and 216 R.

1 Farm Laborer supported the Democrats so final was 219-216.

We talk about this curious case. We also talk about the 14 Congressmen-elect who had some interesting biographies. And we talk Herbert Hoover and the spin he (tried to) put on The Great Depression.

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Strange, introspective, radical, achieving, protesting, scoffing. These words could all be used in TIME magazine's Men and Women of The Year to describe late Silents and Boomers. We look at this, and then a 90s Atlanta Constitutional article on Generation X.

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