Sixth-Year Seat Gain for Democrats?

President Obama has said that he expects Nancy Pelosi to become speaker again after the 2014 midterm.  Ross Baker explains why such an outcome is highly unlikely:

A gain of congressional seats by a president's party in his sixth year in office may not be quite as elusive as the Higgs boson or Fermat's Last Theorem, but it's nearly the equivalent in the political world. Only once in the last 80 years has a president's party managed to gain seats in his second midterm election. That feat was pulled off in 1998 by Bill Clinton, when Democrats gained eight seats on the GOP. In general, however, losses by presidents in midterm elections are as predictable as anything in politics.

Consider Ronald Reagan in 1986, when he was desperate to have the GOP retain control of the Senate. Reagan saw one seat in particular as crucial to win, a seat in Nevada being vacated by his friend Sen. Paul Laxalt. Hoping to capitalize on his popularity in a state he had carried in 1984, Reagan made two early appearances in Nevada on behalf of the GOP candidate. Both of these visits produced surges for the Republican that quickly receded.

Reagan resolved to return to Las Vegas on the day before the election to plead for votes, a visit strongly opposed by his chief of staff, Donald Regan, who feared that the effort would be in a losing cause. Reagan went, reminding voters that "my name will never appear on a ballot again," and ending his speech with a plea to "win one for the Gipper." The next day, the Republican was defeated by a Democratic House member named Harry Reid.

A Non-Wave Election?

At The New York Times, John Harwood writes of the 2014 Senate elections:

More Democratic-held seats are up for election, including in such conservative states as Arkansas, Louisiana and North Carolina. Incumbent Democratic senators have announced their retirements in Iowa, South Dakota and West Virginia.

Yet under similar circumstances in 2012, Democrats actually gained Senate seats. The Republicans’ staunchly conservative base of primary voters helped in some critical races by nominating candidates too clumsy to appeal to mainstream voters.

To win the majority, Republicans must avoid that pitfall, win all three Democratic-held seats Mr. Cook rates as “tossups” and snatch at least three more now leaning toward Mr. Obama’s party. If the economy continues to rebound, however gradually, that will not be easy.

“Modest economic growth, divided government, a midterm election in a president’s second term – it’s kind of a recipe for not much happening,” said Gary C. Jacobson, a scholar of Congressional elections at the University of California-San Diego.

But both in 1986  and 2006 -- years featuring the three conditions that Jacobson mentions -- control of the Senate shifted from one party to the other.  In 2006, of course, Iraq was a big non-economic drag on the GOP.