Barack Obama Looking a Lot Like Ronald Reagan in 1982

First Read crunches the numbers to create a new data point -- the Voter Confidence Index -- based on the president’s job approval rating, the direction of the country, and the generic congressional ballot. Here's the take on the current number:

So what does the VCI currently tell us? It shows President Obama and the Democratic Party on the negative side, with a -38 VCI average for the month of September. That’s eight points worse than where President Clinton and the Democrats stood in 1994 (when Democrats lost House 54 seats). It’s 17 points better than where George W. Bush and Republicans stood in 2006 (when Republicans lost 30 seats). It’s three points worse than where Ronald Reagan and the GOP were in 1982 (when Republicans lost 26 House seats and when unemployment was at 10%, like it nearly is today). What’s more, today’s VCI is starkly different from when Obama’s presidency began. In May of 2009, the VCI was +41.

Back in January, I asked what it would mean for the President and the Democratic Party were the 2010 midterms to look anything like Ronald Reagan's first midterm, 1982. Applying the GOP's losses that year to the Democrats' current numbers, I noted that "the Democrats would hold on to both the House and Senate with still fairly robust majorities (though narrower than they had before)."

Digging even deeper into those 1982 numbers in a subsequent post, I noticed that the election was actually pretty good for Reagan and the Republicans. On the House side the GOP lost 26 seats -- a tough loss, but not one that flipped control of the chamber. The situation for Republicans was significantly better in the Senate, where they didn't lose any seats and managed to maintain their majority. Indeed, nearly all of the close races on election day broke in favor of the GOP, with the party winning a strong nine of eleven single-digit races.

History doesn't necessarily repeat itself. But I'll reiterate that if the 2010 midterms look anything like the 1982 midterms -- and at least according to this new VCI measure they do -- the Democrats are going to be very happy come November 3.