Obama’s Midterm Loss Record Could Make History 
 
 By Stuart Rothenberg 
 
 President Barack Obama is about to do what no president has done in the past 50 years: Have two horrible, terrible, awful midterm elections in a row. 
 
 In fact, Obama is likely to have the worst midterm numbers of any two-term president going back to Democrat Harry S. Truman. 
 
 Truman lost a total of 83 House seats during his two midterms (55 seats in 1946 and 28 seats in 1950), while Republican Dwight Eisenhower lost a combined 66 House seats in the 1954 and 1958 midterms. 
 
 Obama had one midterm where his party lost 63 House seats, and Democrats are expected to lose another 5 to possibly 12 House seats (or more), taking the sitting president’s total midterm House loses to the 68 seat to 75 seat range. 
 
 (Join us on Election Night: Live Stream With Analysis, Results and More at RollCall.com) 
 
 Most recent presidents have one disastrous midterm and another midterm that was not terrible. 
 
 The GOP lost 30 House seats in George W. Bush’s second midterm, but gained 8 seats in his first midterm for a net loss of 22 seats. The party lost 26 seats in Ronald Reagan’s first midterm, but a mere 5 seats in his second midterm for a net loss of 31 seats. 
 
 Democrats got shellacked in 1994, losing 54 seats in Bill Clinton’s first midterm, but the party gained 5 House seats in 1998, Clinton’s six-year-itch election, for a net Clinton loss of 49 House seats. (The figures don’t include special elections during a president’s term.) 
 
 Looking at Senate losses, Republicans lost a net of 5 seats in George W. Bush’s two midterms, while Republicans lost a net of 7 seats during Ronald Reagan’s two midterms and Democrats lost a net of 8 seats during Bill Clinton’s two midterms. (Again, these numbers do not reflect party switches or special elections.) 
 
 Democrats have a chance to tie the number of Senate losses that Republicans suffered during the midterms of Eisenhower, when the GOP lost a net of 13 Senate seats (12 in 1958 and only one in 1954). 
 
 Democrats lost 6 Senate seats in 2010 and seem likely to lose from 5 to as many as 10 seats next week. That would add up to Obama midterm Senate losses of from 11 seats to as many as 16 seats. 
 
 Democrats will likely not exceed the number of Senate losses they incurred during the two Truman midterms, in 1946 and 1950, when the party lost a remarkable net of 17 seats. 
 
 (Interactive: How Much Is Your Member of Congress Worth?) 
 
 Are the Democrats’ losses due to the increasingly partisan nature of our elections and the makeup of the past two Senate classes, or is the president at least partially to blame because he failed to show leadership on key issues and never successfully moved to the political center? 
 
 The answer, most obviously, is, “Yes.” 
 
 Correction, 10:15 a.m. A previous version of this story misstated the year in which the Democrats lost 6 Senate seats during President Barack Obama’s tenure. 
 
 Related: 
 
 A Nerve-Wracking Finish for Democrats 
 
 Democrats Run From Harry Reid 
 
 McConnell: Obamacare Repeal Will Take 60 Votes (Updated) 
 
 Democrats Losing Youth Vote: Millennials Turning to the GOP 
 
 Roll Call Election Map: Race Ratings for Every Seat 
 
 Get breaking news alerts and more from Roll Call in your inbox or on your iPhone. ||||| WASHINGTON | 
 
 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An unrelenting sour mood among voters has steadily eroded support for President Barack Obama's Democrats, putting the party's grip on Congress at growing risk two months before the November 2 election. 
 
 Worries about the economy and plummeting confidence in Obama have Democrats on the defensive in dozens of once-safe races, sparking new predictions of a 1994-style sweep that would restore Republicans to power in the House of Representatives and even the Senate. 
 
 "A big wave for Republicans is almost guaranteed in November barring some cataclysmic event," said University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato, who on Thursday increased his projected Republican gains in the House to 47 seats -- enough to win a majority. 
 
 "The political climate for Democrats has deteriorated badly over the summer," Sabato said. "The rotten economy and President Obama's failure to turn it around is killing Democrats." 
 
 Obama and Democrats got little help on Friday from the latest jobless report, which showed the unemployment rate inching up to 9.6 percent after employment fell for the third consecutive month. 
 
 Democrats entered the summer hoping an improving economy would help their political prospects, but the stubbornly high national unemployment rate and fears of a double-dip recession have sparked wide public anxiety. 
 
 "The economy is issue No. 1 through No. 139, and most people remain very pessimistic," said Quinnipiac University pollster Peter Brown. "It is hard to see what happens between now and Election Day to change the public perception of what is going on with the economy." 
 
 The political climate looks worse for Democrats so far than in 1994, two years into Democratic President Bill Clinton's first term, when Republicans recaptured the House by picking up 52 seats. 
 
 This year, Republicans must gain 39 House seats and 10 Senate seats to reclaim majorities in each chamber and slam the brakes on Obama's legislative agenda, with a switch of power in the House considered increasingly likely and in the Senate a growing possibility. 
 
 MORE SEATS AT RISK 
 
 The nonpartisan Cook Political Report is monitoring 120 potentially competitive House races, the biggest field in years, with 102 held by Democrats. In 2006, it monitored 75 races. 
 
 It lists 73 Democratic seats as toss-ups or highly competitive, up from 68 two weeks ago and 39 at the beginning of the year. 
 
 Republicans also are headed for big gains in the Senate, where they need to sweep nearly all of the most competitive races to recapture a majority. While still difficult, some analysts also see that as increasingly possible. 
 
 "I still don't think the Republicans get a majority in the Senate, but you can start to see more clearly how it could happen," said Jennifer Duffy, Senate analyst for the Cook Report, who predicts Republican gains of seven to nine seats. 
 
 Obama has seen his approval ratings slide below 50 percent over the summer, while the number of Americans who believe the country is on the wrong track has climbed to above 60 percent in most polls.
– Most of the national attention in Tuesday's election is focused on GOP gains in the Senate, but Roll Call points out that Republicans also are poised to hand President Obama a milestone he'd rather avoid in the House. Consider that Democrats lost 63 seats in the 2010 midterms are expected to lose five to 12 (or maybe more) seats on Tuesday. No president has lost as many in back-to-back midterms since Harry Truman lost 83 in 1946 and 1950, writes Stuart Rothenberg. Dwight Eisenhower managed to lose a total of 66, but Obama seems on track to top him. More typical is the pattern of Bill Clinton, who lost 54 in 1994 but bounced back with a gain of five in 1998. Still, if Tuesday is shaping up to be a night of celebration for the GOP, Politico offers a reality check, at least in the Senate: Several first-term Republicans in vulnerable states will be up for re-election in 2016. So even if Republicans win a small majority this year, they might have to give it right back two years later.