Midterm Election

The election that falls at the halfway mark of four-year presidential terms is known as the midterm or, less precisely, off-year election. Every seat in the House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate seats are at stake in this election. In most midterm elections in the past century, the president's party has lost seats in Congress. In 2002, however, the Republicans gained seats in [Page p271]both chambers—the first time that a president's party had accomplished that feat since 1934. The only other time since the nineteenth century that the president's party gained seats in the House was in 1998, when the Democratic president, Bill Clinton, was facing impeachment (the Democrats, however, did not gain Senate seats that year).

Ellen Ozier, Reuters

To some extent the midterm election serves as a referendum on the president's performance during the previous two years. If the economy is poor, if lives are being lost in an unpopular war, or if the president has a low approval rating in the public opinion polls, it is likely that the president's party will lose congressional seats—perhaps enough to change control of one or both chambers.

A prime example was the Democratic Party's loss of Congress in 1994 after four decades of control in the House and eight years in the Senate. The party leader, President Clinton, accepted partial blame for the stunning setback.

Clinton was on shaky ground midway through his first term. He started off on a weak note, having been elected in 1992 with less than a majority of the popular vote, making him one of eighteen so-called “minority presidents.” On taking office he pressed for the rights of homosexuals in the military, a plan that brought him into conflict not only with Republicans, but also with some powerful Democrats, such as Senate Armed Services Chairman Sam Nunn of Georgia. Clinton's ambitious agenda also included raising taxes, overhauling the health care system, and banning certain firearms—goals that angered many conservatives and failed to win across-the-board support from Democrats (although he narrowly won congressional backing for a modified tax package).

At the same time, Clinton's personal character was under constant scrutiny because of alleged infidelity, sexual harassment, and the Whitewater real estate deals in Arkansas while he was governor. Other scandals involved firings in the White House travel office and the suicide of a top aide, Vincent Foster.

In light of these problems, congressional Democrats felt burdened by the Clinton White House. Republicans, on the other hand, rallied around Rep. Newt Gingrich of Georgia and his ten-point “Contract with America,” which proposed a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution, term limits on members of Congress, a line-item veto for the president, an anticrime package, tax cuts, and other reforms. The GOP won fifty-two seats in the House and eight in the Senate, shifting both [Page p272][Page p273]chambers from Democratic to Republican control and reshuffling power in Washington so dramatically that Clinton found himself insisting to reporters that he was still “relevant.” Gingrich became House Speaker, and Robert J. Dole of Kansas became Senate majority leader.

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