Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich, and the 1998 House Elections

Abstract

The outcome of the 1998 congressional elections was an exception to the rule that the president's party loses seats in midterm House elections. This article reviews and draws together theoretically the distinctive characteristics of the political context in 1998 and assesses the effects of the public's evaluations of Bill Clinton (as president and as a person) and Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. The findings suggest that voters' views of Bill Clinton as president exerted a sizable effect on the elections. A substantial influence of public opinion toward Newt Gingrich is also revealed. The estimated effects of voters' opinions of Bill Clinton as a person were much smaller. Two estimates of the combined effects indicate that if public opinion toward Clinton and Gingrich had been evenly balanced, the Democratic party would have lost seats in the 1998 House elections as the president's party tradi- tionally has. In addition to providing insight into the 1998 elections, the findings answer broader questions about congressional elections. They also bear on important questions regarding the extent to which the determinants of political judgments are subject to influence (prim- ing) by the political environment.