GMM’s Pre Post-Mortem On The Midterm

Just a quick note on the midterms as we await for the full results.

The Lavender Wave (pink + blue) that we were expecting did materialize, though not as strong,  and swept the Republicans from the House.  Suburban and college-educated women came out big last night, and a record number of over 100 women were elected to Congress.

This will truly be the year of women flexing their political clout. – GMM

It looks the number of House seats lost will come in at around 37, which puts the 2018 midterm the third worst showing for a first-term post-war president, and worst for a Republican president.   It is 17 seats lower than what the presidential approval model predicted but certainly not an outlier.  See chart.

The pick-up of Senate seats by Republicans was historic,

It was the first time since the nation started directly electing senators in 1914 that a party has won control of the House without gaining seats in the Senate. – USA Today

Midterm Results In A General Election

As soon as the full results are in, we plan to overlay the midterm results into a general election framework based on votes from each Congressional district.    That is we will aggregate this data state-by-state and calculate the electoral college.

We have no idea how the data will shake out.  Stay tuned.

Note:  The variance of the data points seems to increase the lower the presidential approval rating.  Got it, only three data points,  but indicates heteroskedasticity.