The reaction to @ForecasterEnten's column on the midterms is absolutely insane. Like yeah I can tell a story on why Democrats gain House seats and certainly Senate seats, but there's approximately zero reason for that to be the *expectation* right now.
Years where I could tell a better story why the president's party gains seats in the midterm than the current one: 1945, when Truman had an 82% job approval and had just presided over victory in WWII.
1965, when LBJ had a 65% job approval in October and was presiding over an historic Congress and a massive economic expansion.
Heck, this point in 2009, when an historic president had arguably presided over a massive realignment, passed a historically large stimulus program, had the advantage of taking over right when the economy bottomed out, and had a +39 job approval.
None of those midterms turned out well for the president's party. Does that mean 2022 will be a wave? Nope. It means that it is super early, and a lot *will* happen between now and 11/8/22. Your expectation should probably be around the average loss, with very wide error bars.
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