The Midterms

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The West Wing episode
"The Midterms"
Episode no.	25
Prod. code	226203
Orig. airdate	October 18, 2000
Writer(s)	Aaron Sorkin
Director	Alex Graves
Guest star(s)	Elisabeth Moss Claire Yarlett Rebecca Creskoff Jamie Denton NiCole Robinson Alfonso Freeman
Season 2 October 4 2000 – May 16 2001
In the Shadow of Two Gunmen, Part I In the Shadow of Two Gunmen, Part II The Midterms In This White House And It's Surely To Their Credit The Lame Duck Congress The Portland Trip Shibboleth Galileo Noël The Leadership Breakfast The Drop-In Bartlet's Third State of the Union The War at Home Ellie Somebody's Going to Emergency, Somebody's Going to Jail The Stackhouse Filibuster 17 People Bad Moon Rising The Fall's Gonna Kill You 18th and Potomac Two Cathedrals
List of all West Wing episodes...

"The Midterms" is the 25th episode of The West Wing.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

[edit] Synopsis

In the aftermath of the shooting, the Administration is polling at 81 percent. But those numbers are soft, Sam cautions, and no one disagrees. Moreover, they probably won't hold up for the midterm elections in 12 weeks, which mark two years in office for the administration. Still, Toby wants to use this honeymoon as leverage for a domestic-terrorism initiative. In fact, he's obsessed with it. The President also seems obsessed with thwarting an old foe who is running for a school-board seat in New Hampshire. Meanwhile, Sam enlists an old law-school classmate to run for an open House seat.

[edit] Plot

This episode is fast paced, taking course over 12 weeks and focussing exclusively on campaigning for the Midterm elections. Josh is out of the office for the entire time, but communicates over the phone with the staff. Sam asks an old law-school friend to run in his home district for the House--unfortunately, the friend has been accused of being a racist (due to picking white juries for black suspects during his tenure as D.A.) and Leo pulls the plug, cutting off money and canceling a visit by the President.

Toby is obsessed with finding a new way to lean on terrorist groups--specifically, he wants groups like the KKK to have to register with the FBI. Bartlet consoles him by saying that he's frustrated because of the shooting--because Charlie was almost lynched in front of them. Charlie has been having a hard time coping as well, which strains his relationship with Zoey until the end of the episode.

President Bartlet is very distracted--he's more obsessed with an old political foe of his winning a seat on a local school board back home than whether or not the Democrats win back the House. On the night of the election, there is a reception for talk radio hosts, including a very conservative host, Dr. Jenna Jacobs. When the president joins the reception, he explodes in a whirlwind of Scripture quoting to attack her position against homosexuality, ending with what appears to have sparked the outburst, "when the President stands, no one sits." The embarressed Jacobs hesitantly rises.

At the end of the night, some of the staff visits Josh at his home. The results of the election come in--12 incumbents all lost their elections, resulting in the Republicans maintaining control of Congress.