Biden's Job Approval Has Entered Dangerous Territory ANALYSIS .By Sean Trende - RCP StaffSeptember 02, 2021 Biden's Job Approval Has Entered Dangerous Territory(AP Photo/Evan Vucci) In 1880, Americans did something momentous: They all elected their congressional delegations in the same year. Prior to that, elections had been a hodgepodge affair. For example, the first elections for the 28th Congress, which ostensibly met from 1843 to 1845, were held in Missouri on Aug. 1, 1842. But only five other states held elections that year; almost all other states held them over the course of the odd numbered year of 1843. Maryland finally got around to holding its elections on Feb. 14, 1844, a half-year before the presidential election and less than a year before the next Congress convened.

Even after 1880, a truly uniform Election Day did not arrive until 1960, when Maine gave up its stubborn insistence on holding its congressional elections in September. But for all intents and purposes, 1882 marks the birth of the phenomenon we know today as the midterm election year.

It also birthed one of the rare observations in politics about which political scientists and “lay” observers of elections are in near- unanimous agreement: Midterm elections tend to go badly for the party that holds the White House. James Garfield barely won the presidency in the 1880 election – he carried the Electoral College by 60 votes and the popular vote by less than 2,000 votes. Two years later, Republicans lost 34 seats in the House (there were only 325 representatives at the time, so this is the equivalent of over 40 seats in today’s House).

The president’s party has lost seats .......