Why the Midterms Tell Us Little About 2016

“America has again embraced our long history of electoral overreaction. While it’s true that Republicans won a major victory at the polls, the results tell us far less about future elections than some commentary has suggested,” Brendan Nyhan writes.

“Historically, midterm results, which are typically unfavorable to the president’s party, tell us relatively little about the coming presidential election… The record shows that the president’s party can rebound from major losses to win at the polls in two years. Bill Clinton, for instance, bounced back from the 1994 Republican landslide to easily win re-election in 1996. Similarly, President Obama, whose party suffered major losses in 2010, went on to defeat Mitt Romney in 2012, and George Bush won the 1988 election after Republicans suffered major losses in 1986, President Reagan’s sixth year in office.”