The Price of Legislative Success: The President's Legislative Agenda and Midterm Seat Loss

• Published date: 01 January 2025
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X241284563
• Author: Jacob Holt
• Date: 01 January 2025

Article

American Politics Research

2025, Vol. 53(1) 69–79

© The Author(s) 2024

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DOI: 10.1177/1532673X241284563

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The Price of Legislative Success: The

President’s Legislative Agenda and Midterm

Seat Loss

Jacob Holt

1

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Abstract

The president’s party normally loses seats in the House of Representatives during US midterm elections. While many studies

have examined the causes of seat loss, one area often mentioned by media pundits but not examined in midterm elections is the

role of presidential agendas. In this paper, I examine whether legislative success is costly for the president ’spartyduring midterm

elections. I find passing a larger number of legislative items and passing a larger percentage of the president’s agenda costs the

president’s party seats in the midterm election. However, the president’s party only suffers this penalty when the president’s

party also controls Congress. The president’s party is not punished for legislative success whenthe president serves under

divided government.

Keywords

midterm elections, presidential legislative agendas, congressional elections

Since 1882, the president’s party has lost seats in the House of

Representatives in all but three midterm elections (1934,

1998, and 2002). Although midterm seat loss for the presi-

dent’s party is predictable, the amplitude of midterm seat loss

varies widely. Seat change in midterm elections in the post-

World War II era ranges from a net loss of 63 seats (2010) to a

net gain of 9 seats (2002). Several proposed theories attempt

to explain seat loss for the president’s party in midterm

elections. The electorate has been the starting point for many

studies midterm election studies. These studies assume either

there is something different about the electorate in midterm

elections compared to the electorate in presidential elections

(see Campbell, 1985) or that a significant part of the electorate

is strategically voting in a way that will produce seat loss for

the president’s party (Erikson, 1988;Tufte, 1975). Candidate

quality has also been given considerable attention in midterm

election studies (Jacobson, 1989). One area that has received

much attention from the news media but not from midterm

election studies is the effect of presidential agendas. When

Democrats lost control of the House of Representatives in

1994, many media pundits blamed the electoral outcome on

the failure of President Clinton to pass his healthcare reform

proposal (Jacobson, 1996). In 2010, Democrats again lost

control of the House of Representatives, but this time many

media pundits blamed this electoral loss on President Oba-

ma’s success in passing his healthcare reform proposal

(Konisky & Richardson, 2012). These two cases bring up an

important question; which is worse for a president’s party in a

midterm election, legislative success or legislative failure?

While the president’s ability to get Congress to pass their

agenda has often been overlooked in studies of midterm

elections, there are reasons to suspect legislative success might

be electorally costly for the president’s party. Every time the

president succeeds in passing parts of their legislative agenda,

they risk upsetting some parts of theelectorate that then decide

to punishthe president by votingagainst the president’sp artyin

the midterm election. In addition, studies at the congressional

district level have foundthat support for the president’sagenda

can be electorally costly for individual members (Brady et al.,

1996;Gronkeet al., 2003), so it is reasonable to think legislative

success may cost the president’s party seats in the midterm

election. However, the cost is likely to be conditional. The cost

for legislative success is likely to be higher when their party also

controlsCongress because it iseasier for the out-partyto blame

the president’s party for adopted legislation.

This study examines whether the president’s success in

enacting their legislative agenda causes their party to lose

1

University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, USA

Corresponding Author:

Jacob Holt, University of Cincinnati, 2800 Clifton Avenue, 5113A Clifton

Court Hall, Cincinnati, OH 45220-2872, USA.

Email: holt2jb@uc.edu