DrPhillips revised US House Predictions

Analyzing the midterm elections gets easier the closer it gets to the actual vote. What I'm going to do is take a look at the midterm elections of other Presidents.  

Lyndon Johnson's only midterm resulted in a huge loss for Democrats, 48 seats were lost, but Democrats still held a commanding majority of 247. Lyndon Johnson's landslide victory in 1964 initiated many gains for Democrats in the House, 36 seats, so much of the 1966 midterm was a fall from a previous over performance.  

Jimmy Carter's only midterm results in very moderate losses for Democrats, 15 to be exact. This is an example of a very routine midterm, there was not a lot of satisfaction with how things were going, but there wasn't big movement in voting.

 Ronald Reagan's first midterm resulted in 26 seats lost for Republicans, but at the same time Republicans held on to the Senate, which had a Republican majority due to Reagan's large victory in 1980.

 Fast forward to 1994 and Bill Clinton's midterm, which resulted in the disastrous loss of 54 seats to Republicans. The electorate was dissatisfied and you had an organized Republican opposition that people felt they could take a chance on.

The popular vote numbers for each of these elections  

1966: D-50%, R-49%  

1978: D-53%, R-44%  

1982: D-54%, R-43%

1994:R-47%, D-44%

 As you can see, the popular vote margins don't necessarily reflect how small or large party's losses will be, which is why generic polling isn't a great indicator about how things will go, but I am factoring it in just a bit to help me gauge the terrain. Another thing to factor in is that Democrats survived a few midterms because they had huge enough room to drop some seats and still be in the driver's seat. Right now, Democrats hold an overall majority that is slightly less than they had before the 1994 midterm. To the board now (purple means toss-ups). The second and third columns are in no real particular order of vulnerability.  

That’s 26 seats that are likely loses and 22 more on the cusp. If the Republicans do remarkably well and sweep every seat between postions 1 and 44 without losing any of their own, they have a majority of 222, but here is the catch. At least 3 GOP-held seats are about certain to flip Democratic, with another on the cusp and one or maybe two more edging toward that. If they only lose three of those seat (DE-AL, HI-1, LA-2) the Republicans will right at 219 and the Democrats at 216. If Dan Seals is successful in IL-10, then it’s 218-217, which is basically a hung Congress (like a hung Parliament), the GOP has a majority, but it’s not solid enough to do much. Of course, the GOP  probably won’t win all the toss-ups and could miss some seats on the solid flip list.

I predict they will get no less than 22 of the seats that look best for them and get half the toss-ups for an overall gain of 32. Minus the 4 seats leaning Democratic, it’s a gain of 28. The toss-up wins could be more and there may be more wild cards that pop up. Overall, the GOP would have to run the table on everything that is out there, plus grab some extras. 226-206 is my current prediction, give or take a number. If the election does somehow turn out to be 218-217 for either side, Capitol Hill will be one mess of gridlock.