Midterm elections, partisan context, and political leadership: The 2006 elections and party alignment

Forum

Volumn 4, Issue 3, 2006, Pages

  Ceaser, James W ^a   DiSalvo, Daniel ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA   (United States)

^b AMHERST COLLEGE   (United States)

Author keywords

Congressional elections; Leadership; Parties

Indexed keywords

EID: 33947575391     PISSN: None     EISSN: 15408884     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (24)

1. Andrew E. Busch, Horses in Midstream: U.S. Midterm Elections and Their Consequences, 18941998 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1999).
2. nd edition, (Seven Bridges Press, LLC, 1999)
3. nd edition, (Washington, B.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2005).
4. Our data on party divisions in Congress come from the Office of the Clerk for the House of Representatives http://clerk.house.gov/art_history/ house_history/partyDiv.html and the Senate website http://www.senate.gov/ pagelayout/history/one_item_and_teasers/partydiv.htm
5. Some scholars argue that 1834 should count as an instance when the president's party picked up the Senate. They hold that the upper chamber had been in the hands of the opposition from 1832-34, based on a coalition that formed against President Andrew Jackson and that held a slim majority, which the Democrats then reversed in the 1834 mid-term election. However, all this was taking place in a period when party allegiances in many cases were only just forming, and we therefore do not count this election result as a switch.
6. The 1930 election is an ambiguous case. The Republicans won the contest by holding onto a majority of one seat in the House. But by the time the chamber convened in December of 1931, an astonishing 13 Republican Congressmen had died in the interim! The result was a Democratic majority that organized the House for the first time in twelve years. See, David M. Kennedy, Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 59-65. Kennedy also notes that the dismal results for the GOP in the Senate, where they lost eight seats, were so dispiriting that President Herbert Hoover even suggested that Democrats organize the chamber. But Senate Republicans, who still held a nominal majority, wanted to keep their committee chairmanships and quickly dismissed the President's suggestion.
7. The 1954 election is another ambiguous case. The results gave the Democrats 48 seats and the Republicans 47 in the Senate. Because Republican Richard Nixon was Vice President, the key to controlling the chamber was Wayne Morse (OR). Morse was originally a Republican, but switched to independent after the 1952 election, although he voted with the Republicans to organize the Senate. It was not until after the 1954 election that Morse agreed to vote with the Democrats, allowing them to organize the Senate. This makes the 1954 election a less substantial reversal of a majority for the president's party. We thank Philip A. Klinkner for pointing this out.
8. David Burner claims that the 1918 Democratic House losses were largely concentrated in the Plains states, which reflected the Wilson Administration's decision to impose price controls on wheat. Outside of those states, he argues, the Democrats held their own. But as Douglas Craig points out, the Southern-Western coalition that had been the backbone of the Democrats strength in the legislature was broken. He adds that Democrats support in the Northeast and Midwest also declined due to the dislocations caused by World War I. See, Burner, The Politics of Provincialism: The Democratic Party in Transition, 1918-1932 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986), p. 19, 33.
9. See also, Douglas B. Craig, After Wilson: The Struggle for Control of the Democratic Party, 1920-1934 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993), p. 27, 85.
10. "Text of President Wilson's Appeal," New York Times (October 26, 1918).
11. See also, "World Peace Plan Chief Issue Now, Democrats Hold," New York Times (October 27, 1918).
12. "Not Wilson's War, Republicans Say," New York Times (October 26, 1918).
13. According to historian Seward W. Livermore, "the war was the paramount issue" of the campaign. But Republicans were "torn between a desire to assail the president for mismanaging the war and a fear that such a campaign would backfire badly." They resolved this "dilemma by manipulating Democratic mistakes on the home front to the disadvantage of the president." In particular, Republicans argued that Wilson was a sectional president who favored the South by only putting price controls on western wheat, not southern cotton. See, Livermore, "The Sectional Issue in the 1918 Congressional Elections," Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol. 35, No. 1, (June 1948), pp. 29-66. We thank George H. Nash for pointing us to this source.
14. Quoted in Arno Meyer, Politics and Diplomacy of Peacemaking: Containment and Counterrevolution at Versailles, 1918-1919 (New York, 1967), p. 57.
15. See also, William C. Widenor, Henry Cabot Lodge and the Search for an American Foreign Policy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), pp. 266-287.
16. A poll taken shortly after the election showed that Reid was still largely unknown to the public. More than half of respondents said they had either never heard of him or had no opinion of him. Jill Lawrence, "Public expects the Democrats to deliver," USA Today (November 14, 2006).
17. "Congress Passes to Republicans After March 4," New York Times (November 7, 1918).
18. Democratic Party Platform, 1920, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ showplatforms.php?platindex=D1920
19. Richard F. Fenno, Jr., "Interview with Rep. Clarence Cannon (D-MO)," The Center for Legislative Archives (Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives & Record of Administration, 1993). http://www.archives. gov/legislative/research/special-collections/oral-history/fenno/cannon-1964. html
20. Senate Leaders, "Wallace H. White: Powerless to His Party," http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/generic/ People_Leaders_White.htm;
21. See also, James T. Patterson, Mr. Republican: A Biography of Robert A. Taft (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1972).
22. Norman J. Ornstein and Thomas Mann, The Broken Branch: How Congress is Failing America and How to Get it Back on Track (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006).
23. nd edition, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005), pp. 74-77. As Mayhew shows, this success was partly a result of the Conservative Coalition of Southern Democrats and Republicans that moved congressional preferences closer to those of the General.
24. Aaron Wildavsky, "The Two Presidencies," in Perspectives on the Presidency, edited by Wildavsky (Boston: Little, Brown, 1975).