How the president’s party has fared in every US midterm election since 1946
Only twice in the past 20 midterms has the president’s party gained House seats. Polls suggest 2026 won’t be the third.
On Tuesday, Americans head to the polls for the United States midterm elections, held halfway through a president’s four-year term. Voters will choose all 435 members of the US House of Representatives and 35 of the Senate’s 100 seats. The voting will decide which party controls Congress for the next two years.
Although the president’s name won’t appear on the ballot, the vote is widely seen as a verdict on the presidency, and the president’s party almost always pays the price.
In 18 of the 20 midterms held from 1946 to 2022, voters took House seats away from the party in control of the White House. The average loss was 26 seats. Only Bill Clinton’s Democrats in 1998 and George W Bush’s Republicans in 2002 bucked the trend.
The president’s party has lost Senate seats in 13 of the 20 midterms since 1946 but lost control of the chamber in only six: 1946, 1954, 1986, 1994, 2006 and 2014.