Midterms and Mandates : Electoral Reassessment of Presidents and Parties

## Analyses how midterm elections have shaped the American presidency * 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. Contents List of Figures and Tables Acknowledgements Notes on Contributors Preface: Why Midterms Matter Introduction: Midterms and Mandates, Presidents and Parties Part One. Midterm Elections in Institutional Context 1 Presidents and Midterm Loss 2 From Election to Re-election: The Electoral Politics of Presidency and Party, 1960–2012 3 Accountability Regimes, Partisanship and Midterm Mandates: Midterms in Contemporary America Part Two. Testing the New Deal Coalition 4 Swing Time: The New Deal Midterms of 1934 and 1938 5 The Domestic Politics of War: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the 1942 Midterm Elections 6 Midterm Elections, the Republican Party, and the Challenge to New Deal Liberalism, 1946–1958 7 ‘Peace need not be poison at the polls’: John F. Kennedy and the Challenge of the Right in the 1962 Midterms Part Three: The Republican Resurgence 8 War on Poverty Stalled, Nixon Recalled: Republican Revival and the 1966 Midterm Elections 9 ‘The power of their votes’: Richard Nixon, the Silent Majority, and the 1970 Midterm Elections 10 ‘Democrats dominate’: The Democratic Party in Congress and the Midterms of 1974 and 1978 11 The Favourite Son’s Favourites: Ronald Reagan and the Presidential Home- State Effect in the 1982 Midterm Elections 12 The 1986 Midterms: The End of the Reagan Revolution? Index "Analyses how midterm elections have shaped the American presidency. 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."-- Provided by publisher