The Presidency and Midterms

Historically and in precedented times, the political party in the White Hose usually does horrible bad in gaining seats.  1962 and 2002 were the exception to the rule.  Just weeks before the Midterm Election,  the Cuban Missile Crisis was happening.  That year; three Democrats close to President Kennedy were elected: George McGovern of SD, Abe Ribicoff of Connecticut, and of course, Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts.  Former Vice President Richard Nixon lost his bid in the 1962 gubernatorial race in California against Governor Pat Brown.

The 1962 Midterms were expected to lose seats for John Kennedy and the Democrats.  The majorities were just not passing laws like the president wanted, but remember that southern Democrats were still quite segregationists.  But late in the campaign there were Soviet missiles on the island of Cuba, just 90 miles off of the coast of Florida.  Kennedy, learning from his failure at the Bay of Pigs 18 months earlier used that failure to his advantage and saved the world from nuclear war.  Kennedy and the Democrats picked up seats in the Congress as a result of his leadership.

The next consequential Midterm would have been 1974.  Two years earlier in the Presidential Election of 1972, Richard Nixon's team had broken into the Democratic National Committee Headquarters at the Watergate in Washington, DC.  Over the next year and a half; Nixon had denied his involvement in the coverup, until the tapes proved otherwise.  Before media outlets like Fox News, Nixon was faced with an impeachment in the House and all but 12 Senators were ready to convict him in a trial.  That visit to the White House by Barry Goldwater telling the president it was time to go, Richard Nixon resigned the presidency.  The resignation of Nixon and the admittance of Gerald Ford as the healer in chief was not enough for George HW Bush and later, Mary Smith at the Republican National Committee to rally the Party faithful.  One of the bright spots for 1974 was the re-election of Kansas senator Bob Dole.

In the 1990s, the Reagan Revolution was under assault from the new Bill Clinton administration from appointing the First Lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton to head a health care reform task force to the Whitewater scandal; Newt Gingrich with his Contract with America sailed the Republican Party to take majorities in both houses of Congress for the first time since 1954 when Dwight Eisenhower was President.  Bill Clinton, defeated that next day looked to be plotting his comeback and with the tragedy of the Oklahoma City Bombing in 1995, Bill Clinton would be re-elected in the Presidential Election of 1996.

In the 1998 Midterms, the president was caught up in a scandal that the Republican Party felt was worthy of impeachment.  By the fall when Gingrich and the Republicans in the House were running to impeach the President, the public got behind him with 68% approval.  While the GOP still maintained control of both houses, they lost seats too.  The lame duck session of the House did impeach the president in December 1998, causing an outpouring of hypocrisy by members of the Republican Party in the House to resign their seats, including Newt Gingrich and his handpicked successor to be Speaker of the House; Bob Livingston for the same thing that the president had done.  The Senate in 1999 didn't have enough votes to convict.

One year after the September 11, 2001 attack in New York City and Washington, DC, the United States was rallying behind their president who has declared war with Afghanistan and preparing for war in Iraq.  The argument for war in Iraq a year after the attack, high profile members like Hillary Rodham Clinton, John Kerry, and Joe Biden voted in support of President George W. Bush to do WMD inspections in Iraq.  This would ultimately lead the United States to invade Iraq in 2003 in a shock and awe campaign.  Because of the new patriotism and the political rallying behind the leaders, both houses of Congress went to Republican majorities.  But the pending incoming Senate Majority Leader, Trent Lott of Mississippi raised controversy when building up Strom Thurmond at his 100th birthday party when speaking of Mississippi voting for Thurmond in 1948 and how if the rest of the nation voted the way Mississippi did, the country would be better off today.  The exact statement was "When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over the years, either."  Lott was pigeon holed as a racist.  He would be succeeded by Bill Frist of Tennessee.

By 2006, the American people were tired of the status quo with Republican Party politics, particularly with the unending wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.  The 2006 Midterms produced Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress for the first time since 1994.  But the most historic thing to come out of that election was the election by the House of Representatives voting for Nancy Pelosi as their Speaker of the House.

The hallmark of Barack Obama's first term as president was that of the Affordable Care Act.  Ironically, this was not the policy Obama and the Democrats wanted as they wanted universal health care, but because Senator Joe Lieberman would not support this policy to vote by reconciliation, the compromise was to use the Republican Party plan for affordable health care that was used in the Presidential Election in 1992 to counter the Clinton's' universal health care plan.  As a result, the Republican Party had a wing of the Party calling themselves the Tea Party.  This conservative wing wielded enough power among Republicans to take away the Democratic majorities going into 2011.  In his Post Midterm Press Conference, President Obama admitted that the Democratic Party got a shellacking.

The 2018 Midterm was going to be a blue wave.  In the first two years of Donald Trump's presidency really didn't see much happening to benefit the American people.  The border wall that Mexico was to pay for had not been built and as a result, there was a rumor about caravans of South Americans crossing the border.  The promise of repealing "ObamaCare" had failed when a dying Senator John McCain voted no for it to be done away with.  Having been diagnosed just days before that vote with glioblastoma, McCain gave a thumbs down to replace the Affordable Care Act.  There seemed to always be an infrastructure week with no infrastructure.  Trump's 2017 tax cut came around Christmas and that law seemed to have its controversies when it came to who really benefited from it.  For example, there was language within that bill where American companies who were to pay a 21 percent business tax rate was given an option to move the business overseas or to Mexico where for a lack of a better term; a 50 percent off coupon on the 21 percent business tax rate.  Needless to say, the House of Representatives went back to the Democratic Party majority thus making Nancy Pelosi Speaker of the House for the third time.

The 2022 Midterm was expected to be a red wave against Joe Biden, the Democratic Party in Congress, and the current inflation that was a result of what contemporaries say was caused by COVID-19 in 2020, Putin's war in Ukraine, and 40 years of neoliberal policies on taxes.  But there was also the issue of the Supreme Court overturning Roe vs Wade in June 2022.  So while in the early hours after the polls have closed were showing a narrow GOP lead in the House with just two seats at 220 with a plus or minus of ten seats meaning the House could go either way, and until a runoff in Georgia, the Democratic Party May hold the Senate with a 50/50 majority with Vice President Kamala Harris being the tie breaker.  But, Florida saw the ruby red wave with a definitive win for Ron DeSantis and all other Republicans winning statewide races, thus making Donald Trump nervous about 2024.  Joe Biden defied all odds of a president in power taking a shellacking in Midterms.  These unprecedented times proved that despite American History and Midterms; with democracy on the ballot, with the economy on the ballot; they can walk and chew gum at the same time.

This election in 2022 should prove that politics matters and when we see what might happen we step up and want our democracy.