Why President's Party Lose Seats In Elections

It is the world’s worst kept secret - politicians want to get reelected. To accomplish this goal, they will have to convince their constituents that they deserve it. They may face the misfortune of being in a state where their party is not favored - perhaps they won the seat to begin with because their opponent was simply unacceptable, even though the state identifies with the ideology of their opponent’s party. In these kinds of situations, the candidate’s charasma and good will may go a long way in securing the candidate’s election. Perhaps, the issue in achieving reelection is that the President of the United States from the opposing party is not letting them pass pieces of legislation. Although simply blaming the lack of progress on the …show more content…
They are: 1. The coattails / surge-and-decline and 2. The economic / popularity theory. The coattails model is preferable to the economic model. That said, the combination of both theories is even more accurate. The coattail model is implemented in order to observe the decline of the vote from the Presidential election vote to the midterm votes. On the other hand, the economic / popularity model is implemented in order to figure out any deviations from the normal votes to that specific midterm. (Campbell, J., …show more content…
There are exceptions to this perceived rule. In 1998, for example, the incumbent President of the United States was Democrat William (Bill) Jefferson Clinton as his term spanned from 1993-2001. President Bill Clinton was in his sixth year of his eight year term as the President of the United States during the 1998 midterm Congressional election. The President’s party was already in the minority in both chambers of the United States Congress as a direct consequence of a midterm election that occurred in 1994 - the first of two such elections that occurs during a tenure of a full two term president of the United States. In the 1998 midterm elections, the Democratic Party was projected to lose more seats in the United States Congress, given the assumption that a president’s party loses a greater loss in a second midterm than a first midterm. The GOP, which at that time were the opposition party, led by then House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Presidential candidate in 2012 for the Republican nomination, lost their seats in that chamber. The Speaker of the House of Representatives resigned the speakership and his Congressional seat in Georgia’s sixth Congressional district because of the unexpected loss of his party. In all fairness, the mere loss is not what led to the resignation as he was also facing ethical questions of his own at the same time period as President Clinton’s Lewinsky scandal. (Renda, L.,