Commentary
We recently completed a study, “A Model to Forecast Midterm House Election,” that has been published in Social Science Research Network (SSRN). This study identified the major socio-economic and political factors that determine the swing of seats by political party during midterm elections for the House of Representatives.
Various statistical measures (R-squared = 0.95) indicate a high degree of accuracy for our model in projecting the results of the 19 midterm elections from 1946 to 2018. We used those results to forecast the swing in House seats for the upcoming midterm election in November.
In analyzing the election results for the 19 midterm elections between 1946 to 2018, we found that a sitting president’s political party almost always experiences a net loss in House seats. Since 1946, the president’s party has lost seats in every midterm election except in 1998 and 2002. In 1998, the Democrats under Bill Clinton eked out a small gain of four House seats. Four years later, in 2002, the Republicans under George W. Bush gained a scant eight seats….