On November 3, United States citizens will vote in the midterm elections . These won't decide who gets to sit in the White House; instead, Americans will be voting on who they want to see in the Capitol.

Midterm elections are held every four years, at the exact halfway point between presidential elections. The people of the United States decide who will represent them in the two chambers of the US Congress, the House of Representatives and the Senate. Some states are also voting for their governor. These are the decisions on the ballot paper — but they are not the only thing voters will be taking into account.

J. Miles Coleman, an election analyst at the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, explained before the last midterms that they were "often a referendum on the president and party currently in power." If the people are content, the party of the leader in the White House does better than if the people are predominantly dissatisfied.…