New speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., holds the gavel during the opening session of the 116th Congress at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 3, 2019. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

Given all that's happened in American politics since 2019, it may be hard to believe there's been anything missing.

But the decade of the 2020s has yet to see a midterm that mattered much — or that ranked among the impact midterms of past decades.

That sets the 2020s apart, as every other decade over the past hundred years has produced at least one midterm that made a big difference in Congress and in national politics more broadly.

These big-impact midterms have also shifted power in the statehouses, often signaling changes in state and national political landscapes that have mattered and lasted.

Midterms do not attract the same level of voter participation or voter interest as presidential elections.…