How the president’s party has fared in every US midterm election since 1946

Americans are voting for all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 35 of the Senate’s 100 seats, determining control of Congress for the next two years. From 1946 to 2022, the president’s party lost House seats in 18 of 20 midterm elections, shedding an average of 26 seats. Democratic presidents’ parties lost about 29 seats on average, compared with 23 for Republican presidents; Democrats’ biggest defeat came in 2010 under Barack Obama, when they lost 64 seats. The only exceptions to the pattern were Bill Clinton’s Democrats in 1998 and George W. Bush’s Republicans in 2002.