GOP Near Certain to Take the House in 2022 Midterm Election

Disapproval of President Biden gives the Republicans a 94-percent chance to win control of the House of Representatives in the midterm election this fall.

 This forecast is based on the effect of presidential approval on seats won by his party in House midterm elections from 1946 to 2018. Running 10,000 simulations of the approval-seat model produced 99 wins out of 100 for Republicans in 2022 and 1 out of 100 for the Democrats.

This forecast is based on the effect of presidential approval on seats won by his party in House midterm elections from 1938 to 2018.  The equation linking seats won by the presidential party in a midterm election (S) to presidential approval (PA) and seats won by that party in the previous election (SP) has these estimates:

S =  -7.25   +.82PA + .73SP                          Adj R-squared =.77    (N=21) 

      (27.1)   (.30)       (.09)

Biden’s low approval (hovering at 43 percent in the RCP average for October thus far) predicts 189 seats for his party in the House this November and 246 for the Republicans.

Running 10,000 simulations of the approval-seat model produced 94 wins out of 100 for Republicans in 2022 and 6 out of 100 for the Democrats. The GOP forecast is down from 99 out of 100 for the GOP earlier when Biden’s approval was at 38 percent.