In the 2006 midterms, it was also only 4pt.
Absent a surprise Democratic sweep in the 2016 midterms, it was always going to be a four-year slog.
"They feel almost powerless in the midterms; it's like, we could win a few, we could lose a few".
If such a big swing were repeated nationwide in the midterms, it would produce a hefty Democratic majority.
Since the midterms, it's hard to fault him for moving toward the center — the public seemed to demand it, and political wisdom did as well.
Since the midterms, it's hard to fault him for moving toward the center the public seemed to demand it, and political wisdom did as well.
How to describe this faction, which is, by far, the most energetic group in the G.O.P.? Three years after the Tea Party's coming-of-age party in the 2010 midterms, it's still a tricky question.
And despite the triumphalism of the Tea Party movement in the midterms, it could well be that the two parties would be now be tied in the Senate – if not for the Tea Party's attraction to candidates with religious fundamentalist streaks.
The gap between black and white turnout that year was 3.8 points nationally; in the previous two midterms it had been 10.1 and 6.9.Mr Bositis cites 34 congressional races (20 for House seats and 14 for the Senate) and 14 governor's races that could hinge on whether black Democrats vote.
If the political gods had empowered the ghost of Lee Atwater to undermine President Obama's second term, torpedo his poll ratings, and give the benighted G.O.P. at least a slight hope of seizing the Senate in the 2014 midterms, it is unlikely that the godfather of negative campaigning could have come up with something as fiendish as this.
