The 2022 mid-terms are quickly approaching and as usual with American politics it is not looking too good for the Dems when the voting is counted…..

To state the obvious: A lot is at stake in November. The 2022 midterm elections will not only decide control of both the U.S. House and Senate, but also who sits behind the governor’s desk in 36 out of the nation’s 50 states. 

History tells us that midterm elections generally go well for the party that’s not in the White House. But how can we tell whether that’s shaping up to happen again this cycle? As we inch closer to Election Day, there are four big indicators you can watch to give you an idea of which way the political winds are blowing.

The first number to keep an eye on is President Biden’s approval rating. Since World War II, there has been a decent relationship¹ between the president’s average net approval rating (approval rating minus disapproval rating) on the day of the midterm elections and how many seats his party has lost in the House of Representatives. As you can see in the chart below, the president’s party has almost always lost seats — but popular presidents have been able to mitigate their losses.

Since World War II, presidents with net approval ratings better than +30 percentage points on a midterm’s Election Day have lost an average of only three House seats. Meanwhile, presidents with net approval ratings between +5 and +30 points on Election Day have lost an average of 24 seats, and presidents whose net popularity was worse than +5 points — which includes every president since 2006 — have lost an average of 39 seats.

The relationship isn’t perfect, though. President Dwight Eisenhower was extremely popular on Election Day 1958 (a net approval rating of +30.0 points), but Republicans still lost 47 House seats. And in 1974, President Gerald Ford was pretty popular (+19.8 points), but Republicans, still tainted by association with disgraced ex-President Richard Nixon (who had resigned just three months earlier), still lost 43 House seats.

Some Early Clues About How The Midterms Will Go

If things go the way of history then the American people are in store for a chaotic 2 years until the 2024….2 years of political stagnation.

Choose wisely.

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