5 midterm election myths debunked

Political elections create winners, losers and endless speculation about how to predict and interpret the results from all of those votes. The 2014 midterm elections are no different. Larry Sabato, the director of the Center for Politics and professor at the University of Virginia, sheds light on what he sees as midterm myths. One prediction he did offer for the upcoming elections: “The more you look at it, the more you realize that this election will be dramatically over-interpreted, as most midterms are.”

Myth: The midterms serve as a collection of national elections that take the temperature of public opinion.

The energy that a presidential election generates is very different than what nudges voters to the polling stations during a midterm election, Sabato explains. Presidential elections play out on a national stage, drawing out more U.S. voters on average. During a midterm election, nearly 30 percent fewer voters show up to the polls. “This is always presented as a national election,” Sabato said. “It is actually an unrepresentative sampling of state elections.”

Myth: Midterm elections can help us predict future election outcomes.

More often than not, voters may have better luck predicting future elections if they flip a coin rather than use the midterm elections as a divining rod. One need not look further than history to debunk this myth, Sabato says. For example, after the 2010 midterm elections, Sabato said that one person emailed him, saying that “even my dog could beat President Obama in 2012. Millions of Republicans thought that in 2010.” Those predictions, however, did not pan out when Obama was reelected two years later. More often than not, Sabato says, midterms can mislead about the actual outcome or the margin of future races.

Myth: Swing voters make a big difference in midterm election results.

Despite much punditry speculation that swing voters wield immeasurable power at the ballot box, this myth simply does not add up. The reason is that “overwhelmingly, voters are partisan,” Sabato explains, and that partisanship either plays out overtly or is hidden. Sometimes, this partisan behavior is hidden from family, friends or even the supposedly independent voters themselves. “It’s even more true in midterms than presidential (elections),” Sabato said. That is because presidential elections draw out a larger proportion of voters across the nation, while midterm elections often attract dedicated voters who Sabato considers “the most reliable” and “most partisan.”

Myth: This will be an anti-incumbent year.

Sabato scoffs at the notion that the 2014 midterm elections will produce an anti-incumbent year, instead noting that it is “probably an anti-Democrat year.” There is the notion of the six-year itch that history supports. Even when a two-term president receives approval polls of 50 percent or greater, on average that president’s party loses about two Senate seats. While Sabato said that there will be some Republican gubernatorial incumbents who likely will lose, the incumbents who Sabato expects to lose office will be Democratic. “The drift of the year matters more than the incumbency,” he said.

Myth: The president influences the midterm elections.

Does the way a president responds to policy issues and unexpected crises weigh heavily on a midterm election’s results? Sabato doesn’t think so. Whether the issue is Ebola, ISIS or another concern that receives prominent media coverage, Sabato says these issues do not make as much difference as pundits tend to say. “Your partisanship is a perceptual screen that filters opinion,” he said. In other words, Republicans who level political criticism over the U.S. lack of Ebola-based travel restrictions were not going to vote for Democrats anyway.