Midterm Elections

Sixteen years ago, as the summer of 1994 came to a close, then-President Clinton could see that his party's congressional campaign was in trouble. "Hillary had called our old pollster Dick Morris for his assessment," Clinton recalled in his autobiography. "Dick took a survey for us and the results were discouraging. People didn't feel their lives were improving and they were sick of all the fighting in Washington. Apparently they thought divided government would force us to work together.

Rep. Mike Ross, one of the few conservative Democrats who survived the midterm elections of 2010, announced Monday he won't stand for reelection in 2012. In a letter announcing his decision, Ross cited the "tough political environment" he'd face in seeking a seventh term, and he bemoaned the current state of Congress. "While I have worked hard to bring folks to the middle to craft common-sense solutions to the many problems that confront our nation, Washington is mired in gridlock, gamesmanship and constant partisan bickering," he said.

After losing the White House and nearly 70 congressional seats in the last two elections, Republicans are poised for a strong comeback in 2010, with significant gains likely in the House and a good chance of boosting their numbers in the Senate and statehouses across the country. The results could hamper President Obama's legislative efforts as he prepares to seek reelection and reshape the political landscape for a decade beyond, as lawmakers redraw congressional and state political boundaries to reflect the next census.

Democrats putting together new independent political organizations for the 2012 campaign are embracing a model that will allow them to conceal their donors -- the very tactic for which they criticized Republicans in 2010. Majority PAC, a new group aimed at electing Democrats to the Senate, and American Bridge 21st Century, which will serve as a research hub, are being organized as so-called super political action committees that can raise unlimited amounts of money from contributors whose donations are reported to the Federal Election Commission.

It was an old-style landslide for the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which used to rule Mexico from top to bottom. The party's hopes for once again ruling Mexico soared Monday after official tallies confirmed a sweeping nationwide victory in midterm elections a day earlier.

With just over six months to campaign, Democrats face a substantial risk of losing the House and surrendering much of their advantage in the Senate, as Republicans capitalize on strong discontent with President Obama and continued voter concern over jobs and the economy. The trend marks an erosion for Democrats since the beginning of the year, after the retirement of several senior lawmakers and the polarizing healthcare debate. Even recent signs of an economic rebound — the first glimmers of job creation, the stock market surge, a big rise in consumer spending — may not help Democrats, unless it translates into a significant drop in the unemployment rate by fall.

Jonathan Chait compares Europe during World War I with the 2006 midterm elections (Current, Sept. 3). He's more familiar with Great War battlegrounds than Pennsylvania's senatorial history, though. Six years ago, Democrats tried to "win back working-class voters who may be attracted to the party's economic platform but abhor the Democratic cultural agenda" with an anti-choice candidate. But Sen. Rick Santorum won while pro-choice Democrats stayed home and liberal Republicans stayed with their party because they saw no difference between the candidates.

Second-guessers miss their mark Re "How Obama lost his voice," Opinion, Nov. 3. All of the Monday-morning quarterbacks such as Marshall Ganz, who now decry President Obama for failures in leadership, overlook the horrendous obstacles he faced going in, plus various disasters such as the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and a minority in Congress resolved to see him fail. The initial problems were enough to topple anyone: a huge military complex committed to an unwinnable war; eight years of George W. Bush's coddling of failed lending institutions, including a last-minute bailout; tax concessions for the wealthy; and a healthcare system seriously underwater.

The state of the economy likely will outweigh any other issue on the minds of voters in midterm congressional elections, which offer Republicans a significant opportunity to add to their numbers in Congress, a new bipartisan poll shows. The Battleground Poll, released Wednesday, shows a virtual tie between the Republican and Democratic parties when voters were asked which party's candidates they would favor in November.

Argentina's ruling party dominated midterm elections seen as a test of President Nestor Kirchner's 2-year-old government, with his Peronist party picking up support in Congress and his wife, Cristina, winning a Senate seat. In one race, conservative soccer entrepreneur Mauricio Macri won a House seat in Buenos Aires, setting him up as a possible opposition leader to take on the center-left Kirchner.

As President Obama prepares to kick off his reelection campaign, two former key White House aides are likely to launch an independent political group in support of his bid, a direct response to the pent-up demand among Democrats for a vehicle to challenge the Republican network of well-funded allies. The independent expenditure effort is being contemplated by Bill Burton, the former deputy press secretary, and Sean Sweeney, who served as the senior aide to former Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

For Democrats, Ashley Bell was the kind of comer that a party builds a future on: A young African American lawyer, he served as president of the College Democrats of America, advised presidential candidate John Edwards and spoke at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. But after his party's midterm beat-down in November, Bell, a commissioner in northern Georgia's Hall County, jumped ship. He joined the Republicans. Bell, 30, said he had serious issues with the healthcare law and believed that conservative "blue dog" Democrats in Congress who shared his values had been bullied into voting for it. Bell's defection is one of dozens by state and local Democratic officials in the Deep South in recent months that underscore Republicans' continued consolidation of power in the region ?

Inside-the- White House accounts of the presidency have become such a routine commodity in publishing that the genre has its own subsets. One consists of the personal ? usually self-justifying ? reminiscences of disgruntled former staff members or cabinet secretaries. George W. Bush's administration spawned so many of those that you sometimes got the feeling that meetings in the executive mansion must have felt like a mafia sit-down where every second participant is a government informer wearing a wire.

Despite a strong showing during the lame-duck session of Congress, President Obama closes out his second year in office with a slightly lower approval rating than at the end of 2009, according to a Gallup tracking poll released Thursday. The poll found that the president's approval rating was 47%, down slightly from his post-midterm-election peak of 49% but close to his average of 46% during that period. During the week between Christmas 2009 and New Year's Day, Obama's approval rating ranged from 51% to 53%. Obama's standing is better than two recent presidents who went on to win reelection.

While his overall approval rating has remained about the same, President Obama's support among liberal Democrats and independents has slipped to a new low in recent weeks, according to a Gallup tracking poll released Thursday. The poll shows that support among liberals, part of Obama's core group of backers, has dipped to 79%. A week before the midterm election, Obama stood at 88% approval with those who called themselves liberals. According to Gallup, Obama's standing with liberals has averaged 89% since he took office.

With the concession of two Republicans on Wednesday, the remaining undecided races for the House of Representatives and for governors nationwide ended with a small boost for Democrats after the walloping the party took in November. In New York, businessman Randy Altschuler exited the final outstanding race in the House, returning the seat to the incumbent, Democratic Rep. Timothy H. Bishop, who was first elected to the post in 2002. Bishop had just a 263-vote lead over Altschuler for the district representing the eastern tip of Long Island.

The socialist New Democratic Party, taking advantage of a dramatic shift in Canadian political preferences, won three seats in Monday's midterm parliamentary elections, complete results showed Tuesday. NDP candidates were elected in St. John's East in Newfoundland, Hamilton Mountain in southern Ontario and the Yukon Territory. NDP candidate Jack Harris easily won the St. John's East seat, which had gone to the Progressive Conservatives for nearly 20 years.

In an attempt to turn a sow's ear into a silk purse, Republican pundits are struggling to suggest that the 1990 midterm elections represent a "victory" for the President and his party because they lost fewer seats in the House of Representatives than is historically the norm. Unfortunately, these apologists are apparently more interested in rescuing a drowning presidency than in providing instructive historical comparisons. Presidents normally do lose House seats in a midterm election.

Lawmakers return to the Capitol next week facing a deadline to avoid a federal government shutdown as Democrats show no signs of relenting on priority agenda items despite surging Republican opposition. Republicans said Democrats continued to pursue their agenda as if the midterm elections, in which the GOP gained control of the House and expanded its ranks in the Senate, did not happen. Republicans will not have their enhanced numbers until the new Congress convenes in January.