Quotes About Midterms

Midterms behave very differently than presidential elections. Midterms, for a federal candidate, often times are a referendum on the president, where in presidential years, voters make two separate choices: one for president and one for a federal officeholder.

The 1994 midterms had been a shocking rout for the GOP, which picked up 54 seats in the House and eight in the Senate. No one had seen it coming. The Democratic Congress was supposed to be a permanent fact of life; it had been 40 years since Republicans had controlled the chamber.

Republicans won in 2010 and 2014 because some 40 million fewer Americans vote in midterms than in presidential elections, and a substantial majority of those 40 million is inclined toward the Democrats.

Exactly why Democrats were crushed in the '94 midterms is impossible to say.

Midterm elections for first-term presidents are notoriously difficult.

It is fair to debate how much either bill - Obamacare in 2010, tax reform in 2018 - had or will have an impact on the midterms.

The midterms are a chance for people to vote out those they believe are failing to address the concerns of citizens.

On the House side, typically the party that has the White House loses the majority in the midterms - that's been the historic trend. We want to buck that trend. We want to deliver for President Trump majorities in the House and the Senate so that he can govern.

Not many people in Washington are thinking beyond the 2016 presidential election. It is sometimes argued that an American administration operates strategically for only about six months, at the beginning of its second year—after it has gotten its staff confirmed by the Senate and before the midterms campaign begins.

In their view, we'd compromised too much, and by continually chasing the false promise of bipartisanship, we'd not only empowered McConnell and squandered big Democratic majorities; we'd thrown a giant wet blanket over our base—as evidenced by the decision of so many Democrats to not bother to vote in the midterms.

Aside from having to drag progressives kicking and screaming to support a bill tailored to the sensibilities of Max Baucus and Joe Lieberman, the election of Scott Brown less than a year before the midterms had spooked every moderate Democrat who would be in a competitive race.

Gingrich didn't survive to enjoy the fruits of his success, however, since young Republicans persuaded him to step down after their poor showing in the 1998 midterms and because he was having an extramarital relationship at the same time the GOP was going after Clinton for doing the same.

2018 is an incredibly important election year, not just with the important midterms here in the U.S., but you just had the Mexican elections. You have Brazil. You have India coming up at the beginning of next year. There's an assortment of elections around the EU. We're very serious about this. We know that we need to get this right.