President Obama at a rally for Governor Patrick and Lt. Governor Murray.

Two years after millions enthusiastically pulled the lever for Barack H. Obama, voters will return to the polls today to cast ballots reflecting their opinions on the first half of the president’s term.

While Harvard professors agree that Obama has since combatted an unprecedented combination of political and economic challenges, they offer varying degrees of approval of the president—and accordingly hedge their predictions of the results of today’s elections.

Professors are nearly unanimous in predicting that Democrats will lose the House when tomorrow’s votes are counted. But they maintain that the extent to which Republicans win now-Democratic congressional seats will strongly indicate how voters feel about Obama’s success in rebuilding the economy, reforming health care, bridging political divisions, and addressing race relations.

TACKLING THE RECESSION

In the face of the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression, professors say that the Obama administration’s efforts to rehabilitate the economy have been largely successful, despite facing the partisanship that has plagued Congress.

“The Obama administration’s policy accomplishments...have been very significant in the economic domain, including the stimulus package, financial regulatory reform, and health care policy,” writes Harvard Kennedy School Professor Robert N. Stavins in an e-mail.

Government and Sociology Professor Theda R. Skocpol also commends the Obama administration’s successful efforts to pass economic reform, especially “in a highly polarized political system.”

Other professors, however, offer a slightly less glowing assessment of how the administration handled the financial crisis, but recognize that tension between Republicans and Democrats in Congress limited the president’s actions.

Jeffrey A. Frankel, a professor at the Kennedy School, says that the economy needed twice as much stimulus—though he adds that a stimulus package that size would have been impossible to pass in the recent discordant political environment.

Harvey C. Mansfield ’53, a professor in the government department, says that the cost of the stimulus bill and the administration’s spending will contribute to the “massive bumping” of Democrats out of office that he predicts will occur in today’s elections.

JUMPING OFF A CLIFF

Though health care reform sparked heated debate and partisan fighting that lasted for months, professors agree that the Affordable Care Act signed into law on March 23 was ultimately a success.

“It’s a historic step forward in American social policy,” says Skocpol, who recently published a book on health care reform.

Obama’s efforts to make health care more accessible, to decrease the number of uninsured, and to improve the quality of care were impressive, says Robert Greenwald, director of the Law School’s health law and policy clinic.

But in the eyes of other professors, the process of ushering health care reform through Congress encountered many roadblocks and political bickering that tainted Obama’s record in his first two years.