But it has led to problems when the opposition party just decides to oppose everything put forward by the government of the day. In your case, the government of the day could be see. To be the President, or the party controlling the 2 houses (Congress and Senate I think you call them). The role of the opposition should be to allow the will of the people. With mid term elections the will of the people can be shown to change when a sitting President’s party loses majority/ies in the houses, but the sitting President sill has 2 years to run. Is that a sign that the will of the people is for the sitting President to tone down their direction a bit? Perhaps the will of the people have cooled towards the sitting President?
Are mid-term elections a bit of an opportunity to lodge a protest vote? In Australia and New Zealand we have by-elections for the lower house when a sitting member resigns outside of an electoral timeframe. There is “always” a swing against the governing party. Sometimes we have people get elected representing a party, but they either resign from their party or are kicked out (very far, but there have been a few politicians expelled because of legal or ethical issues. There have been a few times in Australia where the governing party has had a member abstain from voting if someone they kicked out votes for the government proposed legislation. The idea being that the person was so abhorrent that the party that kicked them out didn’t want their voting support. That member of parliament is moot a lame duck than a “lame duck President” in their second term. It’s even more rare, but one r or twice this has led to someone feuding to resign from Parliament to create a by-election and just hanging around for the benefits with no intention of contesting the next election.
What is more common is someone being elected to represent a party, having a falling out with them and then standing for election as an independent candidate.
No system is perfect, but our system seems to have less stark division along party lines. Of course, people here still think they’re voting for a Prime Minister. That’s just wrong. They’re voting for a candidate who, if elected, gets a vote for Prime Minister. If more people realised that, we’d have more independents in Parliament.
Generally speaking, electorates that “always” vote in a candidate of a particular party get taken for granted, whether that party is in government or not.