Midterm History Offers No Guarantees For Ohio

Voters across Ohio will decide control of Congress on Nov. 3, an election shaped by a long record of midterm defeats for whichever party holds the White House. Republicans currently hold both chambers.

Since 1934, the president's party has lost an average of 27 House seats and three Senate seats in midterm elections, according to the American Presidency Project at UC Santa Barbara. The U.S. House archives show the chamber has changed hands a little more than one-third of the time in midterm elections since the modern two-party system emerged around 1851.

The sharpest modern swings cut against the party in power. In 2010, under Democratic President Barack Obama, Democrats shed 63 House seats and six Senate seats; Obama later called the results a "shellacking." Democrats under President Bill Clinton lost 54 House seats and eight Senate seats in 1994. In 2018, two years into President Donald Trump's first term, Republicans lost 41 House seats while picking up two Senate seats.

Some presidents have gained ground. The parties of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush each added seats in one midterm. Republicans gained eight House seats and one Senate seat in 2002 under Bush, after campaigning on terrorism and national security after 9/11.

Ohio has followed its own path. In 2006, Ted Strickland became the first Democrat elected governor of Ohio in 20 years. Democrats then took control of the Ohio House of Representatives two years later, their first House majority in 14 years. In 1894, under Democratic President Grover Cleveland, Democrats lost 127 House seats and four Senate seats; the Presidential History Project points to a recession and a railroad strike behind those results.

Attention now turns to Nov. 3 and whether Ohio's political balance shifts again.