As they lick their wounds during what figures to be a tough election night Tuesday, Democrats might want to reflect on the 1982 experience of President Ronald Reagan and take away some lessons from it.

Democrats may want to reflect on the 1982 experience of Ronald Reagan, who saw his party lose many seats in congressional elections; yet he survived because he convinced America that his party represented economic growth. Jerry Seib discusses. Also, Paul Glader discusses how the wind power industry has become tangled in the election year spin-cycle.

In particular, they might want to reflect on the political virtues of economic growth.

Mr. Reagan entered Election Day in 1982, the first midterm of his presidency, overseeing an unemployment rate even higher than it is today (10.4% then, compared with 9.6% now). His approval rating in the Gallup survey was even lower than President Barack Obama's is today (42% for Mr. Reagan, 44% for Mr. Obama). And his party ultimately lost the overall national vote in House races by a whopping 12 percentage points, even worse than Democrats are expected to do this year.

Mr. Reagan's Republicans didn't lose control of the House that year, because they didn't have control in the first place. The fact that they lost only 26 seats (as opposed to the 50 or so Democrats may lose this year) was in part a fluke of history and redistricting. Congressional districts weren't drawn then to produce seat counts that tracked the overall vote as closely as they are now, and more of the marginal districts were held by Democrats rather than by the more vulnerable Republicans.

Economic growth helped President Ronald Reagan bounce back from the GOP's 1982 midterm losses. Associated Press

Despite that midterm hit, Mr. Reagan survived and thrived. He went on to win a smashing re-election in 1984, survived the Iran-Contra scandal in his second term and closed out his presidency on a wave of popularity that allowed him to help turn the White House over to his vice president, George H.W. Bush.

How did he do it? Simply put, he convinced Americans that his party was the party of economic growth, and then put the numbers on the board to prove it.

In that dark year of 1982, the economy shrank by 1.9%. By the presidential-re-election year of 1984, it had undergone a remarkable turnaround and was growing at a rate of 7.2%. The unemployment rate had dropped to 7.4%—still a painfully high rate, but one that seemed more tolerable because the underlying economic growth fostered a belief that it would continue heading downward.

By 1984, the darkness of the 1982 economy had turned into the "Morning in America" theme on which Mr. Reagan ran for re-election.

Some Democrats think that, in a similar way, political recovery for their party requires an intense focus on economic growth.

"My view is that when you have an election like this, even when Democrats manage to squeeze by, you have to really take stock of yourself and question your long-term relevance if you don't change," says Jim Kessler, vice president for policy at Third Way, a think tank that advances the ideas of moderate Democrats. "Democrats have to transition from being an economic-security party to an economic-growth party."

Mr. Kessler argues that "the 80-year mission to fashion a strong safety net is basically over with the passage of health care, and a new mission must take its place. And that mission has to be growth."

Indeed, history may tell us that the Democrats' slide in this cycle began with the fateful decision to pursue a health-care overhaul in 2009 rather than to invest political capital on more steps to stimulate the economy.

It's easy to see why that happened; health care is a time-honored priority for Democrats. They enjoyed majorities in Congress that made a big expansion of health coverage possible for the first time in decades, and the 2008 campaign put health atop the party's to-do list. Still, the decision took the focus off economic growth while also opening up Democrats to the charge they were pumping up the size of government at the wrong time.

As that suggests, the political/economic problem Mr. Obama faces now is the opposite of the one Mr. Reagan faced then. Even as he pushed policies for economic growth, Mr. Reagan was accused of ignoring the social safety net ("shredding the social safety net" was the popular phrase at the time). As Mr. Obama pushed policies to strengthen the safety net (above all that health bill), he's been accused of ignoring the imperative of economic growth.

A Democratic growth agenda will require devising a new strategy to stimulate the economy. Consumers remain hunkered down, and the Federal Reserve is nearly tapped out in providing monetary stimulus, so it can't replicate the sharp cuts in interest rates that gave the economy a big lift in the 1980s. As a result, much will depend on loosening up business spending, meaning the president needs to foster an increase in business leaders' confidence in Washington.

Those tasks are difficult. But Ronald Reagan showed that the rewards can be great.

Low Points: The Economy Then and Now

1982 2010
Consumer prices, all items, annual inflation 6.2% (annual) 1.1% (September)
Third-quarter GDP growth* -1.5% 2.0%
—Average for previous four quarters -2.7% 3.1%
Unemployment rate, seasonally adjusted 10.4% (October) 9.6% (September)
—Average, previous 12 months 9.30% 9.80%
30-year mortgage, fixed rate, October 14.61% 4.23%
Imported crude oil, per barrel, adjusted for inflation $73.35 (October) $77.50 (October forecast)
Federal budget deficit $470.4 billion (inflation-adj.) $1.556 trillion (estimate)

*At a seasonally adjusted annual rate

Sources: Labor Department; Commerce Department; Freddie Mac; Energy Information Administration; Office of Management and Budget

Write to Gerald F. Seib at