In off years, I know usually the POTUS’s party loses seats, is it also true true that the party vote in smaller #'s? (As I type I realize the latter follows from the former) :smack:
Only about half as many vote in an off-year election as in the presidential election.
That allows the enthusiastic voters to make a proportionally huge difference, and the enthusiasm is almost always with the outs rather than the ins. And that’s exactly what happened in 2010, when the conservative right actually voted in larger numbers than in 2008. Absolutely unprecedented, a pure aberration. I kept screaming “aberration” at people who thought that those numbers would continue in 2012 but they chose to deceive themselves.
The Tea Party’s success blindsided the Democrats in 2010 but that won’t happen again. Another coalition may rise unexpectedly in 2016. The rational expectation, though, is that the effect will be much less.