The arrival of 2010 ushers in yet another federal election.\u00a0 This year, every seat in the House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate is up for grabs.<\/p>\n
A new study<\/span><\/a> from the polling firm Public Opinion Strategies demonstrates that President Obama\u2019s approval rating could determine the fate of his strong Democratic majorities in Congress.<\/p>\n Public Opinion studied midterm election results and presidential job approval numbers from 1962 to 2006.\u00a0 The results aren\u2019t too surprising, but they are nevertheless discouraging for the current party in power.<\/p>\n Even a strong approval mark of 60% has only historically garnered the president\u2019s party one seat in the House.\u00a0 For example, President Ronald Reagan had a 63% approval rating in 1986, but Republicans still managed to lose five seats in Congress that year.<\/p>\n An average approval rating of 50% to 59% historically results in an average loss of 12 seats.\u00a0 President Obama\u2019s current approval rating<\/span><\/a> is 50%.<\/p>\n If his approval rating dips below 50%, he may be welcoming Speaker John Boehner in 2011.\u00a0 When the president\u2019s approval rating falls below the Mendoza Line<\/span><\/a> (50%) for politicians, his party loses an average of 41 seats, or one more than Republicans currently need to take back the lower chamber<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n Generally, a president\u2019s popularity and tenure in Congress are inexorably linked.\u00a0 When November arrives, President Obama will learn that lesson anew.<\/p>\n Stay tuned for more coverage\u00a0by CFIF on the 2010 elections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The arrival of 2010 ushers in yet another federal election.\u00a0 This year, every seat in the House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate is up for grabs. A new study from the polling firm Public Opinion Strategies demonstrates that President Obama\u2019s approval rating could determine the fate of his strong Democratic majorities in Congress. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[700,702,185,14,701,456],"class_list":["post-3018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-2010-elections","tag-approval-rating","tag-house-of-representatives","tag-president-obama","tag-public-opinion-strategies","tag-ronald-reagan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3018"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3018\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3026,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3018\/revisions\/3026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}