[Skybird]

The Neue Zürcher Zeitung writes on the elections:
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An unpopular president and oppressive inflation - the starting position before the U.S. congressional elections resembles that under Truman in 1946

Faced with a president with modest poll numbers and international crises, the Democrats under Harry Truman suffered a disastrous defeat in the 1946 midterms. But Republicans cheered only briefly at the time.

The U.S. president was aware of an almost ironclad political rule: in midterm congressional elections, it is never the party in power in the White House that celebrates on election night. When Harry Truman reflected on his Democrats' electoral prospects in the Oval Office in early November 1946, he was aware that only once had the presidential party emerged victorious from the midterms. It was not long ago: in 1934, the Democrats under Franklin D. Roosevelt had bucked every historical trend and won seats in both chambers of Congress. Voters had honored the fact that the 32nd president had taken energetic steps to overcome the Great Depression under the slogan "New Deal."

A success of historic dimensions

The shadow of his predecessor weighed heavily on Truman. The senator from Missouri had been elected Roosevelt's vice president in 1944 for his fourth term (which would no longer be possible today due to a constitutional amendment). After Roosevelt's death in April 1945, he succeeded him in the highest office. The wave of sympathy for his successor - shortly after taking office, Truman had an approval rating of 87 percent - had quickly subsided. Many commentators measured the unassuming bespectacled man, who had repeatedly failed in his professional career before entering politics, against his flamboyant predecessor and found him too uncharismatic.

Even worse for his party, however, was the fact that the mood in the country, which had still been euphoric after winning the world war, had deteriorated drastically. It was paralyzed by strikes, especially in the steel and auto industries and on the railroads. Moreover, after the lifting of price controls still dating from the war, inflation was oppressive; staple foods saw price increases like they had not seen in a generation - if they were available at all. There were supply problems as a result of rationing that had not yet been overcome. In Denver, for example, housewives hijacked the truck of a large bakery with its load of bread.

This created ideal conditions for the opposition party. The Republicans were campaigning against a president who had an approval rating of only 32 percent and who was complying with the request of many of his fellow candidates not to show up at their campaign events.

On election night, the Republicans' hopes were fulfilled: they reversed the balance of power in Congress. In the House of Representatives, they gained 55 seats, the highest victory since the midterm elections of 1894. In the Senate, the success was of historic dimensions. Only twice in American history has a party succeeded in wresting more than ten seats in the small chamber from its opponent. In 1946, the Republicans won twelve seats. Congress had thus become a potent corrective to Truman's policies.

A drastic warning from history

Republican strategists harbor a similar expectation in Tuesday's congressional elections. Even if the problems of the present are different from those of the first postwar year, the mood seems comparable to that of then - especially with regard to the president, who has struggled to climb out of a polling slump.

Since World War II, the incumbent president's party has lost an average of 26 seats in the House and 4 in the Senate in midterms. It has made gains only twice: In addition to the Democrats under Roosevelt in 1934, the Republicans under George W. Bush managed to do so in 2002, when the nation largely rallied behind the incumbent as a result of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. In 1998, Democrats won seats in the House of Representatives but not the Senate in the wake of the mudslinging over Bill Clinton. Both chambers remained under Republican control.

In one respect, election night 2022 could resemble that of 1946: a victorious Republican Party would cast the result as the beginning of the end of the Democratic presidency. But here American history holds a drastic warning. Victories in midterm elections are fleeting and have little radiance on the presidential election that comes two years later. After the 1946 landslide, Republicans were so sure of success that they went for a loser. Once again they sent New York Governor Thomas Dewey, who had lost to Roosevelt in 1944, into the race.

The demoscopes cheered the certainty of victory not only until the vote was cast, but even beyond. A piece of 20th century iconography is the photo of a beaming and just re-elected President Truman holding up the newspaper with a premature headline: "Dewey defeats Truman!"