Common to both political folk wisdom and political science is the idea that the mid-term congressional election is a referendum on the performance of the current administration. The more popular a president and the more successful his policies, the better his party does at the midterm. The president's party almost invariably loses some congressional seats in off-year elections (since the Civil War the president's party has added House seats only once—in 1934—though it occasionally picks up Senate seats). But the extent of its losses varies widely (from one to 56 House seats in postwar midterms), depending, so the theory goes, on how the electorate rates the administration's performance.

The 1982 congressional elections will, in this view, be a referendum on President Reagan's administration and in particular on his economic policies, which have been the focus of political attention since inauguration day. If this is true, then economic conditions prevalent through the spring of 1982 (a potentially devastating combination of deep recession, high unemployment, and high interest rates) and Reagan's shaky support in the polls (less than 50 percent approving his performance in all Gallup surveys during the first four months of 1982), portend a Republican disaster of major proportions in the fall.

Remarkably, almost no one is seriously predicting anything of the kind. And it may indeed be a mistake to bet on enormous Republican losses—partly, we will argue, because they are not widely anticipated.

Incumbent politicians are understandably nervous when electoral rules are altered. In the case of the U.S. House of Representatives, members are well aware that a change in decade is accompanied by the near certainty that their own district lines will be redrawn. These incumbents know that changes resulting from the reallocation of congressional seats among states and the shift of population within states could have a shattering effect on their careers: their districts could be eliminated; they could be thrown into a district with another House incumbent; their district lines could be radically redrawn, destroying their traditional bases of support.

Incumbents' unease is transformed into serious worry by one additional fact: de jure control of redistricting is out of their hands. State legislatures and governors, the Justice Department (for those states falling under the Voting Rights Act) and ultimately the courts determine the fate of incumbents.

Of course, the ostensible purpose of congressional redistricting in accordance with the decennial census is to ensure that congressional representation reflects the changes in the geographical distribution of the nation's population and thus to ensure that the members of the House from each state represent approximately the same number of citizens. Putting that principle into practice creates opportunities for the parties to increase their strength in the House but it also causes tremendous uncertainty among incumbents.

Looking at political science research on the effects of redistricting on the fortunes of incumbents, one might wonder why they worry. In 1972 I reported findings of my study on incumbents who lost their elections after redistricting.

The relationship between sex and political behavior has been discussed only in passing in the political science literature, if it is discussed at all. There has been little evidence from the 1940s to the 1970s that gender plays a role in determining issue positions, candidate evaluations, or candidate preference, as a quick perusal of some well-read political science works would confirm.

Berelson, Lazarsfeld and McPhee in Voting, the seminal work on opinion formation in a presidential campaign, discovered no relationship between vote preference and sex. The researchers did discover a difference in reported interest in the 1948 campaign between men and women early in the campaign, but even that difference faded as the election drew near.

Campbell, Converse, Miller and Stokes in The American Voter make no mention of either the existence or non-existence of sex difference in policy or candidate preference. They focus instead on differences in turnout, involvement and efficacy. Although they suggest that at one time opinions about Prohibition may have separated men from women, the authors conclude, “In the current era, there is no reason to believe that women as women are differentially attracted to one of the political parties.”

Pomper in Voters' Choice does find a relationship between sex and one issue dimension–the dimension of war and peace. But Pomper, Campbell and Berelson agree that any sex differences cannot, by definition, be long-lasting. Berelson cites the lack of differentiation in the way policies affect the sexes, the lack of differences in intergenerational transmission, and the lack of segregation between the sexes.

Realignment is one of the few political science concepts that have made their way into the popular culture. Writers like Samuel Lubell, Kevin Phillips, and David Broder, borrowing heavily from the political science literature, have made informed political observers aware of the cyclical nature of party dominance in American political history and of the fact that the demise of the so-called “fifth” or New Deal party system has been overdue since about 1968. It is not unusual for political reporters to ask each other after a presidential election whether it was a “critical election” or not. They are, in other words, hip to our jargon.

What most journalists and politicians understand by realignment, however, is a good deal less complex than what political scientists mean. Realignment, to most people in Washington, means a Republican take-over. It means that the GOP will replace the Democrats as the “normal” governing majority in this country for the next generation, just as the Democrats replaced the Republicans as the “normal” governing party after 1932.

Certain facts suggest that things are changing in that direction. The Republicans have won three out of the last four presidential elections. The Democrats have obtained a majority of the presidential vote only twice in nine elections since 1944. The once-Solid South did not hold for the Democrats in 1964, 1968, 1972, or 1980. On the other hand, Democratic predominance has continued at most levels of office-holding below that of president and in party registration figures.