Political Science 101

David R. Mayhew and Matthew I. Bettinger of Yale University write in The Washington Post concerning what to expect from the Congress to be elected in November, based on the experiences of the six presidents during the last century who have been reelected and served out a full eight years.

The first thing to say is that there is no instance of a president pressing and winning a domestic program after a second midterm.  It is a zero.

History can rise up and bite. Events closed in on all the six presidents in their last two years.

A fair amount of legislating has occurred in these last congresses, but it has had its own texture, and much of the policymaking of these years has been event-driven and non-legislative.

Thus endeth today's political science lesson.