Mike Pesca

The last time we voted for a president.

was Barack Obama in 2008.

Everything else has been more of a vote against type of election.

2010, a vote against sort of Democrats expanding the size of governments, right?

The Tea Party surge got fired up that wing of the party.

Republicans win the House.

But it was a vote against, right?

It was a vote against the Democrats.

2012, in many ways, was not an easy re-election for Barack Obama when you looked at the state of the economy.

But they did a successful job saying, oh, yeah, you're not going to want Mitt Romney's economy.

You're not going to want Mitt Romney deciding these policies.

You're going to be better off with Barack Obama policies than you will with Mitt Romney policies.

And they painted him as an outsourcer, as a guy in the pocket of China.

And that played well in the Midwest.

It's also the last time Democrats were able to carry Iowa, Ohio, in addition to Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Not a small deal, but again, I look at 2012 not necessarily as a vote for, but really when you look at how he carried those Midwestern states, he was not promoting himself.

They were attack ads against Mitt Romney.

2014, another vote against election.

2016, another vote against election.

2018, another vote against election.