Midterms and Mandates
Electoral Reassessment of Presidents and Parties
Edited by Patrick Andelic, Mark Mclay, Robert Mason
- Provides an analysis of a fundamental yet little-studied aspect of the American political system
- Combines insights from history and from political science by featuring research grounded in both disciplines
- Showcases the work of emerging scholars as well as researchers of international renown who have written discipline-shaping work on the modern American presidency, including Julia Azari, Andrew Rudalevige and Iwan Morgan
- Reassesses US presidents in the decades since Franklin Roosevelt by analysing the effect that midterm elections had in shaping their time in office
- Offers institutional overviews as well as historical case studies that examine this feature of US electoral politics, thus engaging with issues of present-day politics as well as the past
Midterm elections have forced presidents to adjust course and have heralded the rise or fall of new party coalitions, yet they remain understudied in comparison to their presidential counterparts. This book offers a fresh perspective on the American presidency by analysing the significance of midterm elections in the United States. Midterms not only provide an important opportunity for voters to evaluate the record of a president so far, but also have consequences for an administration’s pursuit of the president’s agenda over the two years that follow. As the essays in this collection show, midterms modify in crucial ways the mandate that a president gained at the time of their election to the White House. The volume integrates contributions from political scientists and historians to create a truly multidisciplinary understanding of the interplay between midterm elections and the American presidency.
Preface: Why Midterms Matter - Julia R. Azari
Introduction: Midterms and Mandates, Presidents and Parties - Patrick Andelic, Mark McLay & Robert Mason
Part I: Midterm Elections in Institutional Context
1. Presidents and Midterm Loss - Andrew Rudalevige
2. From Election to Re-election: The Electoral Politics of Presidency and Party, 1960–2012 - Sarah Tiplady
3. Accountability Regimes, Partisanship, and Midterm Mandates: Midterms in Contemporary America - Nadia Hilliard
Part II: Testing the New Deal Coalition
4. Swing Time: The New Deal Midterms of 1934 and 1938 - Iwan Morgan
5. The Domestic Politics of War: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the 1942 Midterm Elections - Andrew Johnstone
6. Midterm Elections, the Republican Party, and the Challenge to New Deal Liberalism, 1946–1958 - Robert Mason
7. ‘Peace Need Not Be Poison at the Polls’: John F. Kennedy and the Challenge of the Right in the 1962 Midterms - Mark Eastwood
Part III: The Republican Resurgence
8. War on Poverty Stalled, Nixon Recalled: Republican Revival and the 1966 Midterm Elections - Mark McLay
9. ‘The Power of Their Votes’: Richard Nixon, the Silent Majority, and the 1970 Midterm Elections - Sarah Thelen
10. ‘Democrats Dominate’: The Democratic Party in Congress and the Midterms of 1974 and 1978 - Patrick Andelic
11. The Favourite Son’s Favourites: Ronald Reagan and the Presidential Home State Effect in the Midterm Elections - Richard Johnson
12. The 1986 Midterms: The End of the Reagan Revolution? - Joe Ryan-Hume
Political scientists in the United States who study American politics are familiar with the theory of surge and decline. [...] The editors of Midterms and Mandates bring that analysis closer to ground level.
Mid-term elections are one of many features of U.S. political democracy that make it hard for elected officials to evade the enervating politics of the ‘permanent campaign’. In this sprightly collection of essays, an able group of historians and political scientists show that as well as diminishing presidential authority (their most familiar effect) mid-term elections have frequently exposed deeper and more important currents of political continuity and change.
[...] by diving mindfully into past midterms, the analyses and case studies offered by Midterms and Mandates give us a clear roadmap for how to consider midterms of the future.
