The Most Important Election of Our Lifetime

It has become comical how often the “most important election of our lifetime” phrase is used and abused. My colleague Andrew Kauders was recently elected to his village council and I’m quite sure it was the most important election of his constituents’ lifetimes… or at least, it was important to Kauders.  

Tomorrow is Election Day in the Commonwealth of Virginia—my home—and I’ve certainly been asked by the media and others to consider the governor’s race a defining moment in our history. For those of us swamp creatures who work inside the Beltway, what is perhaps most intriguing about this election is the game of setting expectations. Odd-year elections have almost always generated outsized interest and attention but this one race seems particularly amplified given the debates being had within the Democratic party and the race’s potential as a referendum on the first 285 days of unified Democratic control of Washington.

Presidents Biden and Obama, Stacey Abrams and other party leaders have made trips to the Commonwealth to campaign for the Democratic candidate for governor, former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe. That seems like a lot of firepower when Biden won Virginia by 10 points just a year ago and the Commonwealth hasn’t supported a Republican at the top of the ticket since 2009. Republicans had their “dream” gubernatorial candidate last election and still lost by 9 points. So, what will we learn tomorrow and what does it all mean? Not much.

If Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin wins, Democratic pundits will point to his self-funded $20 million of the $57 million campaign coffer and his balancing act on Trump as the formula for his success. If McAuliffe wins, Republican pundits will point to his time as governor and the increasingly blue color of the state. So if either outcome is easily explained, why are the expectations being raised so high? Because this election WILL effectively kick off the race to the 2022 midterms where both chambers of Congress are up for grabs.

An unmistakably bad habit of Washington is to focus on the next election almost immediately after the last vote from the previous election is counted. The evenly divided Senate and razor-thin, three-seat Democratic majority in the House reveals the precarious nature of power these days. But as fall comes to Washington, there is something in the air that is causing a chill among Democrats – a seemingly inevitable conclusion that they are almost certain to lose control of at least one chamber of Congress in t-minus 13 months. 

Regardless of what happens in Virginia tomorrow, history is not on the side of Democrats. Over the past 100 years, the president’s party has gained seats in the House in only three out of 25 midterm elections (12 percent). Each of these three trend-breaking elections must be studied individually for context.

• In 1934 (FDR’s first term), Democrats gained nine seats in the House and secured a supermajority in the Senate in the midst of the Great Depression. Prior to 1934, the president’s party had failed to gain seats in any midterm election since the Civil War.
• In 1998, Democrats gained five seats in the House but did not gain a sufficient number to claim the majority. The election took place in the middle of President Clinton’s second term and was widely seen as a rebuke of the House Republican majority and its pursuit of impeachment. Clinton’s approval rating was in the high 60s prior to the election.
• In 2002, Republicans gained eight seats in the House during a post-9/11 America that was dominated by security concerns. Bush’s approval rating was in the high 60s prior to the election.

At no point in his presidency has Biden enjoyed an approval rating above 60 percent so while not impossible, it would seem likely that the 2022 midterm election will cost the Democrats their slim majority in the House. More recent history for first-term presidents further illustrates the trend that President Biden will be fighting against: