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What Do You Know About the Midterm Elections?

Take this quiz and find out

Dena Bunis

En español

Published March 01, 2022

7 Questions

What Do You Know About the Midterm Elections?

[ {
  "question" : "Why are this year's elections called \"midterms\"?",
  "answers" : [ {
    "answer" : "They are held in the middle of the president's term.",
    "correctAnswer" : true
  }, {
    "answer" : "They are held in the middle of the term of a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  }, {
    "answer" : "They are held in the middle of the term of a U.S. senator.",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  } ],
  "multiSelect" : false,
  "explanation" : "The term \"midterm\" refers to the election that is held halfway through a presidential term.",
  "hint" : "",
  "hintLink" : "",
  "questionImgCaption" : "",
  "questionImgCredit" : ""
}, {
  "question" : "How many U.S. Senate seats are up during the 2022 midterms?",
  "answers" : [ {
    "answer" : "All 100 seats",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  }, {
    "answer" : "34 seats",
    "correctAnswer" : true
  }, {
    "answer" : "50 seats",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  }, {
    "answer" : "62 seats",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  } ],
  "multiSelect" : false,
  "explanation" : "Every two years, roughly one-third of the U.S. Senate seats are up for election. Senators serve six-year terms so their re-election years are staggered.",
  "hint" : "",
  "hintLink" : "",
  "questionImgCaption" : "",
  "questionImgCredit" : ""
}, {
  "question" : "How many U.S. House of Representative seats are up during the 2022 midterms?",
  "answers" : [ {
    "answer" : "All 435 seats",
    "correctAnswer" : true
  }, {
    "answer" : "217 seats",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  }, {
    "answer" : "167 seats",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  }, {
    "answer" : "Half the seats in every state",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  } ],
  "multiSelect" : false,
  "explanation" : "All 435 House seats are up for election since House members serve two-year terms.",
  "hint" : "",
  "hintLink" : "",
  "questionImgCaption" : "",
  "questionImgCredit" : ""
}, {
  "question" : "I voted by mail in 2020. Will I automatically get a ballot mailed to my home this year?",
  "answers" : [ {
    "answer" : "Yes",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  }, {
    "answer" : "No",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  }, {
    "answer" : "Maybe",
    "correctAnswer" : true
  } ],
  "multiSelect" : false,
  "explanation" : "It depends which state you live in. Many states changed the way they conducted the 2020 election in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic by expanding the ability of people to cast their ballot without physically going to the polls. Some of those rules remain and some have been changed again for the 2022 election.",
  "hint" : "",
  "hintLink" : "",
  "questionImgCaption" : "",
  "questionImgCredit" : ""
}, {
  "question" : "How many times in the 40 midterm elections since 1862 has the party in power in the White House actually gained seats in Congress?",
  "answers" : [ {
    "answer" : "25",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  }, {
    "answer" : "4",
    "correctAnswer" : true
  }, {
    "answer" : "10",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  }, {
    "answer" : "30",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  } ],
  "multiSelect" : false,
  "explanation" : "It happened in 1902, 1934, 1998 and 2002.",
  "hint" : "",
  "hintLink" : "",
  "questionImgCaption" : "",
  "questionImgCredit" : ""
}, {
  "question" : "Why are elections always held on a Tuesday?",
  "answers" : [ {
    "answer" : "So Christians wouldn't have to travel on Sundays for a Monday vote",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  }, {
    "answer" : "So farmers could bring their crops to market on Wednesdays",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  }, {
    "answer" : "Both of the above",
    "correctAnswer" : true
  } ],
  "multiSelect" : false,
  "explanation" : "Congress passed a law in 1845 that set the first Tuesday after the first Monday as Election Day. The agrarian and largely Christian society in the 19th century dictated that elections couldn't be held on Monday because of the time many needed to travel to polling places and they needed to be at the market on Wednesdays. Thus Tuesday was selected as the best day for elections.",
  "hint" : "",
  "hintLink" : "",
  "questionImgCaption" : "",
  "questionImgCredit" : ""
}, {
  "question" : "How many seats a state has in the U.S. House of Representatives is based on population. Which states have only one House seat?",
  "answers" : [ {
    "answer" : "Rhode Island, South Dakota, Wyoming and Massachusetts",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  }, {
    "answer" : "Montana, North Dakota, Wyoming, Vermont, Delaware and Alaska",
    "correctAnswer" : true
  }, {
    "answer" : "Kansas, Vermont, Hawaii, Alaska, Ohio",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  }, {
    "answer" : "Mississippi, Maine, Vermont, Rhode Island, North Dakota",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  } ],
  "multiSelect" : false,
  "explanation" : "Montana, North Dakota, Wyoming, Vermont, Delaware and Alaska each does not have enough residents to allow them to have more than one representative. However, those states — like every other in the country — have two seats in the U.S. Senate.",
  "hint" : "",
  "hintLink" : "",
  "questionImgCaption" : "",
  "questionImgCredit" : ""
} ]

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What Do You Know About the Midterm Elections?

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Dena Bunis covers Medicare, health care, health policy and Congress. She also writes the “Medicare Made Easy” column for the AARP Bulletin. An award-winning journalist, Bunis spent decades working for metropolitan daily newspapers, including as Washington bureau chief for the Orange County Register and as a health policy and workplace writer for Newsday.