Midterms and Mandates

Patrick Andelic is Assistant Professor in the Department of Humanities at Northumbria University. His first book, Donkey Work: Congressional Democrats in Conservative America, 1974-1994, was published by the University Press of Kansas in 2019. Mark McLay is Lecturer in American History at the University of Glasgow. He contributed to Constructing Presidential Legacy (Edinburgh University Press, 2018) and published articles in Journal of Political History and Historical Journal. Robert Mason is Professor of Twentieth-Century U.S. History at the University of Edinburgh. He has published extensively on the subject of American party politics and the American presidency, publications include The Republican Party and American Politics from Hoover to Reagan (Cambridge University Press, 2012) and The Liberal Consensus Reconsidered: American Politics and Society in the Postwar Era (edited with Iwan Morgan, University Press of Florida, 2017).

Political scientists in the United States who study American politics are familiar with the theory of surge and decline. [...] The editors of Midterms and Mandates bring that analysis closer to ground level.

• Preface: Why Midterms Matter - Julia R. AzariIntroduction: Midterms and Mandates, Presidents and Parties - Patrick Andelic, Mark McLay & Robert MasonPart I: Midterm Elections in Institutional Context1. Presidents and Midterm Loss - Andrew Rudalevige2. From Election to Re-election: The Electoral Politics of Presidency and Party, 1960–2012 - Sarah Tiplady3. Accountability Regimes, Partisanship, and Midterm Mandates: Midterms in Contemporary America - Nadia HilliardPart II: Testing the New Deal Coalition4. Swing Time: The New Deal Midterms of 1934 and 1938 - Iwan Morgan5. The Domestic Politics of War: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the 1942 Midterm Elections - Andrew Johnstone6. Midterm Elections, the Republican Party, and the Challenge to New Deal Liberalism, 1946–1958 - Robert Mason7. ‘Peace Need Not Be Poison at the Polls’: John F. Kennedy and the Challenge of the Right in the 1962 Midterms - Mark EastwoodPart III: The Republican Resurgence8. War on Poverty Stalled, Nixon Recalled: Republican Revival and the 1966 Midterm Elections - Mark McLay9. ‘The Power of Their Votes’: Richard Nixon, the Silent Majority, and the 1970 Midterm Elections - Sarah Thelen10. ‘Democrats Dominate’: The Democratic Party in Congress and the Midterms of 1974 and 1978 - Patrick Andelic11. The Favourite Son’s Favourites: Ronald Reagan and the Presidential Home State Effect in the Midterm Elections - Richard Johnson12. The 1986 Midterms: The End of the Reagan Revolution? - Joe Ryan-Hume