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The Last Best Hope?
The Last Best Hope?

Why Presidents Lose Midterms

46 min•22 oktober 2026

Om avsnittet

Since the Civil War the president's party has lost ground in Congress in every single midterm election bar four. What's going on? Are voters punishing the administration they put into office just two short years earlier? Is it an attempt to balance power in Washington? Or is it just that the president's party's supporters don't turn out? To explore this issue, Adam is joined by Ursula Hackett, the Churchill Associate Professor of US Politics at the RAI. Adam and Ursula discuss some of the most dramatic midterm elections of the past -- from the 1874 repudiation of President Grant to Obama's 2010 "shellacking" to try to work out what explains a remarkably consistent phenomenon-- the President's party losing.


The Last Best Hope? is a podcast of the Rothermere American Institute at the University of Oxford and is kindly supported by Tom Amraoui. For details of our programming, go to rai.ox.ac.uk


Join Adam Join Adam Smith, Molly Ball, Galen Druke and Ursula Hackett for The Midterm Elections: What Just Happened? on 5 November at 2pm UK time, in Oxford or online. Event details and registration.


If you would like to support us by making a donation go to https://www.rai.ox.ac.uk/giving


Producer: Emily Williams. Presenter: Adam Smith


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