The Coming Red Wave
It's not looking good for Democrats in the House
It’s almost a foregone conclusion that the Democrats will lose control of the House in the November midterms. The President’s party almost always loses a substantial number of seats in midterm elections. With inflation and dissatisfaction with the the state of the country both high, there’s little reason think this year will be an exception.
Democrats are probably going to lose the control of the US House of Representatives in the midterm elections in November. If you follow American politics closely, I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. It’s not a hard forecast to make.
Historically, the President’s party tends to lose seats in non-presidential election years. Because voters tend to turn out more in opposition to than in support of the party in power—what political scientists call “negative partisanship”—the party out of power has gained seats in all but one of the last 18 midterm elections. Since 1950, the party out of power has netted an average of 25 seats in midterm elections. Republicans need to pick up just 9 seats to gain control of the House in November’s election. Democrats were probably destined to lose the chamber from the moment they won the presidency with just a slim majority in the House.
Democrats’ chance of holding on to their majority may be even lower than that history suggests. If all we knew was that the party in power lost seats in 17 of the last 18 elections, it might be reasonable to think that Democrats have about a 5% chance of holding onto their seats. But 2022 is unlikely to be the rare exception to the usual rule. The last time the party in power didn’t lose seats—and the last time the president’s party held on to a majority in the House after a midterm election—was 2002. Republicans’ experienced an extraordinary surge in support after the September 11 attacks in 2001. George W. Bush still had a 61% approval rating at the time of the midterm elections. Democrats aren’t doing anything like that well in 2022.
Today the US is still recovering from—and is arguably still in the middle of—a global pandemic. Inflation is higher than it has been in 40 years. Real wages are declining. Americans are more pessimistic about the economy than they have been since the Great Recession. Satisfaction with the way things are going in the US is the lowest it has been in the run up to a midterm election since Gallup began measuring it forty years ago. Joe Biden’s approval rating is around 41%. That’s about the same as Donald Trump’s at this point in his Presidency. Democrats gained 41 seats that year.
Democrats are at a disadvantage in even a normal year. Congressional maps have long favored Republicans in the sense that Democrats have to win more votes than Republicans to win the same number of seats. Republicans will probably retain that advantage after redistricting. FiveThirtyEight estimates that with current maps, if the vote were evenly split between Republicans and Democrats, Republicans would win a 15 seat majority. In order to win a majority in the House Democrats probably need to win the national popular vote by 2.5 points.
That probably won’t happen. Republicans appear to be ahead of Democrats by several points in generic congressional ballot polls. These polls, which ask voters which party they want to control Congress, predict the national popular vote margin fairly accurately. Democrats would have somehow to make up the 4-5 point gap between how they’re polling and the margin the need over the next few months.
That’s not a lot of time. Inflation may begin to slow, but it probably won’t slow enough to make voters feel much better about the economy. Democrats may have lost a significant opportunity to shore up their support when they failed to extend the expanded child tax credit. But if the Supreme Court does in fact overturn Roe, it will probably increase Democratic turnout somewhat, since voters tend to be more motivated when they’re angry than when they’re satisfied. The continuing revelations from the January 6 Committee—which millions of Americans are watching—about the extent to which Republicans knowingly spread lies in order to prevent the elected president from taking office may hurt Republicans who are currently running on those lies. Redistricting may also limit how large a majority Republicans can achieve by reducing the number of competitive districts that are in play.
The Cook Report currently projects Republicans will pick up 20-35 seats. Metaculus gives Republicans an 81% chance of retaking the House. PredictIt gives Republicans about a 90% chance. Republicans may not do quite as well as in some of their recent wave elections, but 2022 looks to me a lot like 1994—when Republicans gained 54 seats—and 2010—when they gained 63 seats.
My Forecast
Republicans have a 96% chance of winning a majority in the House
Republicans have a 50% chance of winning at least 240 seats in the House
I’ll be on vacation for three weeks, but will look at the Democrats’ significantly better chances to hold on to the Senate when I return in July. When I get back I’d like to get readers more involved in developing these forecasts with me. If there’s something you’d like to forecast or discuss, please leave a comment and let me know. In the meantime, superforecaster Michael Story is looking for accomplished forecasters to participate in a new project making forecasts easier to understand and use. If you’re interested, you can sign up here. As always, if you enjoy my work, please share it with your friends and colleagues!
Interesting, thanks! Metaculus seems pretty underconfident, considering the fairly lower base-rate of 5%
One small suggestion. I'm not sure whether this is an interesting forecasting question since a lot of people seem to be fairly confident in a positive outcome (my subjective, not quantified, feeling of the news - I may be wrong due to my poor following of the news in the last weeks). The question would be: Will Finland (and Sweden) successfully join NATO despite Turkeys current standpoint. GJO sees - in a transferable forecasting question - a 57% chance of resolving positively (https://www.gjopen.com/questions/2405-will-finland-and-or-sweden-become-members-of-nato-before-1-january-2023), which is far less confident.
I find this to be an interesting question regarding the near future of a (hopefully soon) Post-UKR-RU war and Russia's geopolitical ambitions.
Enjoy your vacation!