Michael Traugott: Every midterm election is important because it produces a majority party that has the authority to organize Congress. That means that they get to decide committee assignments and also who the Chairs of the committee are, and that affects the flow of business in the Congress.

We know that when voters go to the polls in midterms, they are voting usually retrospectively. They are evaluating the performance of the government and they attach that to the persona of the President and they are also voting about how the economy has performed in the very recent past.

There is no Presidential candidate leading the tickets, so in almost every election there has been a loss of seats in the Congress by the President’s party.

So if you look at the pattern of losses in -- of term elections since 1946, you can see that there are these consistent downward bars that show the losses up until the 1990s, but one of the biggest losses was in 1994, that was the election of the contract with America, where the Republicans tried to unite nationally and to organize their campaign together.

In 1998, during the Clinton impeachment, but also good economic times, the Democrats actually gained seats. And in 2002, the Republicans gained seats shortly after of course 9/11. So these have been the exceptions, but in 2006, again, there was a loss.

When political scientists develop models to explain these midterm losses, they use things like the President’s approval rating and changes in disposable income in the last quarter or two.

Well, if we take these two important factors and look at how they stand now, the President’s approval rating is somewhere around 44 or 45%. It’s not historically low, but it’s low. And the more serious issues of course is that the economy is in very bad shape. People have been suffering both in personal income terms as well as in job loss terms.

The Democrats have a historically high majority, especially in the Congress, in the House of Representatives, so this makes them quite vulnerable in the 2010 election.

Based upon our understanding of how the process works, it’s virtually certain that the Democrats are going to lose a large number of seats. 

Probably the seat loss will be between 30 and 35, not quite enough to give Republicans a majority and allow them to organize the House, but it will certainly change the dynamics of debate in the House.

On the Senate side, Democrats will also take losses. The Republicans have been able to recruit generally a very good crop of candidates, but again, I don’t think it’s likely that the Republicans will be able to gain control of the Senate and to organize that body.

The Obama Administration has had a very impressive legislative record in the Congress, with the help of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, although they haven’t received very much credit for it. His reelection prospects in 2012 are going to be based upon his ability to take some credit for the accomplishments so far, plus the ones that they will be able to accomplish in the next session.

If the Republicans gain control, the passage of legislation, major legislation, such as the Climate Bill, will come to a virtual halt, and this will complicate his chances of reelection.