Midterm elections have forced presidents to adjust course and have heralded the rise or fall of new party coalitions, yet they remain understudied in comparison to their presidential counterparts. This book offers a fresh perspective on the American presidency by analysing the significance of midterm elections in the United States. Midterms not only provide an important opportunity for voters to evaluate the record of a president so far, but also have consequences for an administration’s pursuit of the president’s agenda over the two years that follow. As the essays in this collection show, midterms modify in crucial ways the mandate that a president gained at the time of their election to the White House. The volume integrates contributions from political scientists and historians to create a truly multidisciplinary understanding of the interplay between midterm elections and the American presidency.

Political scientists in the United States who study American politics are familiar with the theory of surge and decline. [...] The editors of Midterms and Mandates bring that analysis closer to ground level. -- J. Twombly * CHOICE *
Mid-term elections are one of many features of U.S. political democracy that make it hard for elected officials to evade the enervating politics of the ‘permanent campaign’. In this sprightly collection of essays, an able group of historians and political scientists show that as well as diminishing presidential authority (their most familiar effect) mid-term elections have frequently exposed deeper and more important currents of political continuity and change. * Gareth Davies, University College London *
[...] by diving mindfully into past midterms, the analyses and case studies offered by Midterms and Mandates give us a clear roadmap for how to consider midterms of the future. -- Charles Hunt * Party Politics *

Mark McLay is Lecturer in American History at the University of Glasgow. He contributed to Constructing Presidential Legacy (Edinburgh University Press, 2018) and published articles in Journal of Political History and Historical Journal.