I am displeased that the GOP had a decent showing last night. But I don't agree with the narrative that it was an epic rout. Relative to other midterm elections, this seems relatively mild, and doesn't change the balance of power as much as it may appear.
My big takeaway is that trying to distance yourself from your party's leadership isn't going to work, and will only annoy your base (see Kentucky Senate race) and depress turnout.
We still are positioned well for the future, and we should focus on motivating the base.
My understanding is that the Democrats lost 14 House seats and seven in the Senate. The table below the fold gives some context on past midterms.
Here is a table of mid-term election results since WWII. I painstakingly created this using the information found in the New Diarists Group, here
Year |
President |
House |
Senate |
1946 |
Truman |
-55 |
-12 |
1950 |
Truman |
-29 |
-6 |
1954 |
Eisenhower |
-18 |
-1 |
1958 |
Eisenhower |
-48 |
-13 |
1962 |
Kennedy |
-4 |
3 |
1966 |
Johnson |
-47 |
-4 |
1970 |
Nixon |
-12 |
2 |
1974 |
Ford |
-48 |
-5 |
1978 |
Carter |
-15 |
-3 |
1982 |
Reagan |
-26 |
1 |
1986 |
Reagan |
-5 |
-8 |
1990 |
Bush |
-9 |
-1 |
1994 |
Clinton |
-52 |
-9 |
1998 |
Clinton |
5 |
0 |
2002 |
Bush |
6 |
2 |
2006 |
Bush |
-30 |
-6 |
2010 |
Obama |
-63 |
-6 |
Yesterday's results certainly don't rank among the worst drubbings of all time. It isn't even the worst this decade. It should also be remembered that the Democratic Party picked up eight Senate seats in 2008. That year had historically high turnout in a Presidential election year, so the fact that we held onto some of those gains is good. Eleven of the 17 elections resulted in greater than 14 seats lost in the House, so that could be worse as well.
It should also be noted that the Republicans have learned some lessons from the past few election cycles, and that is a good thing. You aren't seeing them put up Todd Akin anymore because they know what issues are off the table.
I would have preferred to see Democratic candidates defend President Obama more, and they could have done better. But I don't think we need to fall into despair.