Year	Lame Duck?	President	Party	president's job approval %							House Seats	Senate Seats
				early Aug	late Aug	early Sep	late Sep	early Oct	late Oct
1934		Franklin D. Roosevelt	D	nd	nd	nd	nd	nd	nd		+9	+9
1938		Franklin D. Roosevelt	D	nd	nd	nd	nd	nd	60		-71	-6
1942		Franklin D. Roosevelt	D	74	nd	74	nd	nd	nd		-55	-9
1946		Harry S. Truman	D	nd	nd	33	nd	nd	27		-45	-12
1950	LD*	Harry S. Truman	D	nd	43	35	35	43	41		-29	-6
1954		Dwight D. Eisenhower	R	67	62	nd	66	62	nd		-18	-1
1958	LD	Dwight D. Eisenhower	R	58	56	56	54	57	nd		-48	-13
1962		John F. Kennedy	D	nd	67	nd	63	nd	61		-4	+3
1966	†	Lyndon B. Johnson	D	51	47	nd	nd	44	44		-47	-4
1970		Richard Nixon	R	55	55	57	51	58	nd		-12	+2
1974	±	Gerald R. Ford (Nixon)	R	71	nd	66	50	53	nd		-48	-5
1978		Jimmy Carter	D	39	43	43	48	nd	49		-15	-3
1982		Ronald Reagan	R	41	42	nd	42	nd	42		-26	+1
1986	LD	Ronald Reagan	R	nd	64	nd	63	64	nd		-5	-8
1990		George Bush	R	75	73	54	nd	nd	57		-8	-1
1994		William J. Clinton	D	43	40	40	44	43	48		-52	-8
1998	LD	William J. Clinton	D	65	62	63	66	65	65		+5	0
2002		George W. Bush	R	nd	66	66	66	68	67		+8	+2
2006	LD	George W. Bush	R	37	42	39	44	37	37		-30	-6
2010		Barack Obama	D	44	44	45	45	45	45		-63	-6
2014	LD	Barack Obama	D	42	42	41	43	42	41		-13	-9

Last Update: December 19, 2014

Citation: Gerhard Peters. "Seats in Congress Gained/Lost by the President's Party in Mid-Term Elections." The American Presidency Project. Ed. John T. Woolley and Gerhard Peters. Santa Barbara, CA: University of California. 1999-2015. Available from the World Wide Web: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/data/mid-term_elections.php.

Notes:
• Beginning with Obama, job approval is the average job approval during the noted half month period.
• A "lame-duck" mid-term (Congressional) election is one that occurs when the incumbent President is constitutionally prohibited from seeking re-election in the next scheduled presidential election. Arguable exceptions are noted below.
* Harry S. Truman was not prevented from running for a 3rd term in 1952 although he chose not to seek re-election.
† Lyndon B. Johnson was not a lame-duck president in 1966, but in March 1968 he chose not to seek
re-election.
± Although Gerald Ford was not a lame-duck president and did run for re-election in 1976, the 1974 mid-term election took place only three months after the resignation of Richard Nixon and only two months following Ford's pardon of Nixon.

Data Sources:
• Presidential job approval data from The Gallup Poll.
• 1950 — 1994 Congressional seat gain/loss from Lyn Ragsdale, Vital Statistics on the Presidency, Washington, DC: CQ Press, 1998.
• 1934 — 1946 & 1998 — 2014 Congressional seat gain/loss by Gerhard Peters, The American Presidency Project