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In surfer slang, a long wave is called a “runner.” The key question for investors is whether the blue wave that hit the country on Tuesday was such a wave, and whether it could carry Democrats to victory in 2028.
Statistically speaking, the answer should have little effect.
CNBC analyzed elections since 1938, examining the largest midterm wave elections in which the party in the White House lost seats, to determine whether they foreshadow anything about the presidential election two years later.
Tuesday’s election marked the largest loss of House seats for the incumbent party in the White House since 2018, but it just barely missed a historic top 10 spot. With close races still being tallied, the party ranks 10th in a CNBC analysis using estimates of the 41 House seats won by opposition parties. The biggest loss occurred in 1938, when the Democratic Party lost 72 House seats amid a renewed recession, opposition to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s court packing, and a battle between the president and his party’s conservative wing. Roosevelt won reelection two years later in 1940.
In more modern times, Republicans took control of the House of Representatives in 2010, two years into President Barack Obama’s first term, and Democrats lost 64 seats, although they retained the majority in the Senate. Obama won re-election two years later. The top four elections all took place before the president’s final term, and all resulted in incumbents winning re-election.
But in the next five waves, the incumbent party lost, including the Republican Party losing seats under President Dwight Eisenhower in 1958 and John F. Kennedy’s defeat of Richard Nixon in 1960. And after Republicans lost seats in 2018, Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in 2020.
Jay Campbell, a partner at Hart Associates, the Democratic polling firm behind CNBC’s National Economic Survey, said the reason the midterm wave may not last is the importance of individual personalities in presidential elections.
“A lot can happen in two years. The presidential election certainly depends on the overall political environment, but it also depends a lot on the candidates from each party,” Campbell said. “If the qualifications of candidates are important in parliamentary elections, they are 1,000 times more important in presidential elections.”
It’s a long road to 2028, and this wave, dangerous as it may have been, could statistically subside just as easily as it could push a Democrat back into the White House.
