He promises to distribute 45m voter guides this year, a record for a mid-term election.

ECONOMIST: Randy Tate��s factory

In that vote, a sitting president managed to increase his party's share of congressional seats in a mid-term election for the first time since 1934.

ECONOMIST: Not least his own party

The last time unemployment was anything like its current level of 9.6% at a mid-term election, in 1982, the president's party lost 26 seats in the House, even though it was already in the minority.

ECONOMIST: The only question is just how bad it will be for the Democrats

In the campaign for a mid-term election on July 5th involving all 500 seats in the lower house of Congress, PRI candidates across the country have solemnly trooped into public notaries' offices to turn their campaign promises into formal pledges.

ECONOMIST: Felipe Calder��n��s battle for relevance

But taking such a strong stance on the Lewinsky affair in the throes of a partisan mid-term election campaign, has left the town divided.

BBC: Lewinsky in Loveland

With only a little over two years left on Mr Bush's term, his poll ratings are at record lows, and his allies in Congress are facing a tough mid-term election.

ECONOMIST: Paulson's progress

Ideally he wants to be selected for a mid-term by-election, or failing that a rather safer Tory seat than Enfield, though he is keeping in reserve the option of fighting again there if all else fails.

ECONOMIST: Up for Portillo

These elections could, instead, mark a return to the politics of the 1970s when a government's mid-term blues were followed not by recovery but defeat in a general election.

BBC: Vote 2012: What were the people saying?

"This is more than just an ordinary mid-term election, " Reuters news agency quoted Graciela Romer, a Buenos Aires pollster, as saying.

BBC: NEWS | Americas | Argentine election campaign ends

Anger was strong against Mr Bush at the 2002 mid-term election, yet the Democratic leadership at that election was a disaster, and the party was slaughtered.

ECONOMIST: John Kerry