Tomorrow America heads to the polls. All 435 House seats and 35 of the 100 Senate seats are on the ballot, two years on from the 2020 election which saw more than two-thirds of voters turnout to vote — the highest number in 120 years.
Turn up, turn up
Although midterms have always seen lower turnout rates than presidential elections, usually trailing by around 16%, the chasm opened up to its widest point in 2014 when just 37% of those eligible turned out to vote in the midterms, compared to 58% who had voted in the 2012 presidential race just 2 years earlier.
The most-recent midterms, however, were a little better-attended. Roughly half of the eligible electorate got out to vote in 2018, and turnout for this year is expected to be even higher. More people are also voting early, perhaps a remnant of behaviors from the pandemic, with ~41% of registered voters planning to vote early this year, up from ~34% in the 2018 midterms.
For Biden, the midterms will be a reckoning of how his presidency is faring. Poll data collated by fivethirtyeight shows Biden’s approval rating has struggled to regain ground since the chaotic evacuation of Afghanistan, with domestic economic issues now taking center stage in races across the country.
