Anti-Incumbent Mood To Make For An Interesting Election

I know I probably sound like a broken record by repeatedly insisting that the voters are in an anti-incumbent mood, and could well flip control of the House of Representatives when they vote this November -- but I believe it is a reality. Note the chart above, which shows the voters' approval of Congress in midterm election years. Only twice before has congressional approval dropped below 25% -- and both of those times resulted in control of the House being flipped from one major party to the other (in 1994 and 2010).

And this year those congressional approval numbers are lower than in either 1994 or 2010 -- resting at only 16% according to Gallup (and that seems like a fairly generous number, since the RealClearPolitics average of polls puts that approval at only 12.8%). This tells me that the stage is set for another anti-incumbent voter revolt -- one that could well flip control of the House. And that would be bad for the Republicans, since they currently hold the majority.

This is verified by some other numbers from Gallup. The chart below shows voter satisfaction with the way things are going in the country at the time of midterm elections. Note that since 1986 only twice has that satisfaction dropped to 30% or below (1994 and 2010), and as I said, both years resulted in voters changing the House's majority party. The 2014 satisfaction number is well below 30%.

The charts above are made from midterm information provided by the Gallup Poll (with this years numbers coming from a survey done between June 5th and 8th). That recent survey contained a random national sample of 1,027 adults, and has a 4 point margin of error.