By these incomplete numbers, campaign spending in 2018 increased by 35% over 2014. The Center for Responsive Politics (2018), as of late November, projected that $5.2 billion was spent by candidates, the parties, and PACs. Not coincidentally, campaign spending also soared. The last midterm election with turnout over 50% was held over 100 years ago ( McDonald 2018b). This exceeded turnout in the 2014 midterm by more than 13 percentage points. According to the US Election Project, about 50.3% of the voting eligible population voted ( McDonald 2018a). In several respects, the 2018 midterm election was unusual. This brought their numbers up to 53, a three seat majority. On the Senate side, Republicans added two members. ![]() The 24 seat Republican majority after 2016 was replaced with an 18 seat Democratic majority. This moved them from 194 seats following the 2016 election to 235 seats after the midterm. The Republican House majority was swept out to sea and a Democratic majority was left in its place. The widely anticipated blue wave hit the shore of American politics on Election Day 2018. Republicans delivered on their 2016 mandate to boost the economy, but had failed to provide leadership that many Americans could feel comfortable with. Republicans lost to Democrats among these voters by 16 percentage points. About two-thirds of voters in 2018 said their vote was about Trump. Never-Trump conservatives who had drifted back to vote Republican at the end of the 2016 campaign did not feel that same pressure without the presidency being at stake. As the out-party, polarized liberals were motivated by anti-Trump anger. The interaction of values with these leadership assessments now favored Democrats. Evaluations of Trump’s leadership remained negative. In 2018, performance evaluations again favored Republicans, but now because they presided over a stronger economy. ![]() These offsetting partisan attitudes made the election close enough that a small number of votes in key states decided the electoral vote outcome. The election of President Trump in 2016 depended on a mix of performance evaluations (a weak economy) favoring the Republicans and leadership evaluations (Trump’s behavior difficulties) muted by value considerations (conservative anger at being unrepresented and the necessity of a choice between Trump and Clinton). It proposes a trinity of partisan attitudes serving as the components of electoral mandates: performance, values, and leadership. Why did the American electorate elect a solid majority of Republicans to the House in 2016 and then 2 years later replace it with a solid majority of Democrats? This article revives the idea of an electoral mandate and applies it to the 20 elections.
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