Economic Indicators and Congressional Elections

Earlier in class, we read on the Five Thirty Eight blog about trying to predict the outcome of Presidential elections by using economic indicators. This was an interesting study, but it was limited in scope because of the fact that Presidential elections only occur once every four years. I plan on increasing the scope of this study by looking at Congressional elections (House and Senate). I will be looking to see if the same economic indicators used in trying to predict the Presidential election are effective in predicting the outcomes of Congressional elections. With 435 House elections every two years and about 33 Senate elections every two years this vastly increases the number of observations. If I start from the year 2000 and continue through the 2010 elections, I should have about 2800 observations. Hopefully, the increased number of observations will allow us to see if national economic indicators have any effect on the outcomes of elections.