Two weeks ago,
Charlie Cook wrote about a generational gap among election forecasters. Basically, he wrote that older forecasters were more inclined to look at macro factors in House elections than were younger forecasters, who focused more on district-by-district analysis. I am not saying this to be a whippersnapper or anything, but when it comes to at least one macro factor, Presidential approval at midterms, I do have to seriously doubt it has a huge impact. Look at this:
Pollkatz recorded a 14.3% difference in Bush's job approval from just before the 2002 and 2004 elections, yet in the House the results were nearly identical. Had it not been for Texas redistricting between the 2002 and 204 elections, Republicans probably would have only won 228 seats in 2004. As frustrating as it may be for our side this year, this isn't exactly the sort of evidence that makes one think macro factors play a large role in congressional elections. Or, at least, it doesn't lead to believe that Presidential approval plays a huge role in determining the makeup of the House. In fact,
if you click through to look at this chart, there barely seems to be any correlation at all between Presidential job approval and the proportion of seats for Democrats in the House. For example:
- In 1994, when Clinton's pre-election approval was just below 50%, Democrats won 204 seats in the midterm elections. However, in 1998, when Clinton's job approval was over 60% just before the midterms, Democrats only won 211 seats. Despite a swing of around 15 points in Presidential job approval, Democrats saw an improvement of only 7 seats in the House.
- In 1982, when Reagan's job approval just before the midterms was just over 40%, Democrats won 269 seats in the House. In 1986, when Reagan's job approval was over 60% just before the midterms, Democrats won 258 seats. Despite a difference in job approval of roughly 20 points, Democrats won only 11 more seats.
This is not to say that the party of an unpopular, sitting President shouldn't worry about the impact of Presidential job approval on midterm elections. Certainly, every sub-50 score on that chart led to big losses for the party of the sitting President. In 1950, Democrats lost 29 seats when Truman's approval was low. In 1966, Democrats lost 47 seats when Johnson's approval was low. In 1974, Republicans lost 49 seats after Nixon resigned. In 1978, Democrats lost 15 seats when Carter's approval was low. In 1982, Republicans lost 27 seats when Reagan's approval was low. In 1994, Democrats lost 54 seats when Clinton's approval was under 50%. In all six cases, the party of the sitting President with a sub-50 approval rating (or the party of a President who had just resigned) lost seats in a midterm election. There just isn't any direct correlation between how many seats were lost and Presidential approval rating.
Charles Franklin currently estimates Bush job approval at 41.2%. This puts Bush as low as any other President heading into a midterm election from 1950 forward. This does indicate that Republicans will lose seats, but I think about 99% of the political community is expecting that to happen. What it does not tell us it that a landslide election is about to occur. Bush's job approval may be low, and Democrats may be poised to win seats, but I don't think that the macro factor of Presidential approval can be counted upon to forecast a wave election.
Last month,
I sent up warnings about how the generic ballot is not necessarily a good macro factor to look at when determining how many seats Democrats will win in the House. Now, I am giving warnings about Presidential approval. The point I want to emphasize here is that while macro factors can give you a very generalized indication of how many seats Democrats will win in the house--namely, that they should gain seats--they are blunt instruments that fail when it comes to making precise projections. For that, I still believe the best solution is to look at district-by-district data. There may be other macro factors that are more important,
such as the ones measured by Pew in their latest survey, but the information on those factors only goes back a few midterm elections. Maybe it is because I am young, but I will generally stick to a district-by-district analysis in my
House forecasts, and only take the macro factors as a vague set of guidelines. I want to believe the macro factors that still point to a huge Democratic win, but I don't see enough evidence to be convinced of them--not by a longshot.
I will have an updated House forecast tomorrow.
