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Revisiting Midterm Loss

Referendum Theory and State Data

Dickinson College

The phenomenon of midterm loss—the drop in the midterm congressional vote for the president's party from its level 2 years prior—is more than a century old and counting. Some see this as a predictable referendum on the president's performance to date. Others argue that the referendum model does not hold up over time; still others, using survey data, find scant evidence for "pocketbook" voting in congressional elections. The data in this article escape reliance on a tiny sample of postwar midterms by using state-level data to test variants of the referendum hypothesis. They indicate no significant connection between state-level income change and the state's midterm vote. However, consistent with the referendum hypothesis, national income change and presidential approval have a strong overall impact, though this impact has declined markedly since the mid-1970s. Short-term lagged vote variables and measures of congressional incumbency have grown stronger over time.

American Politics Research, Vol. 29, No. 1, 25-46 (2001)
DOI: 10.1177/1532673X01029001003


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