savings and loan scandal. A rough budget battle in
1990 and incomplete election campaign finance re-
form also tarnished Congress’s image. Neither Re-
publicans nor Democrats had generated clear, na-
tional messages, so candidates tended to rely on
local interests and issues. There was a 36.5 percent
voter turnout. In thirty-two Senate races, only one
seat changed party, as Minnesota replaced Republi-
can Rudy Boschwitz with liberal Democrat Paul
Wellstone. This raised the Democratic majority to
56-44. In the House, only fifteen incumbents (nine
Republicans and six Democrats) lost their seats, with
96.3 percent of them returning to their seats,
though margins of victory were narrower for Demo-
crats than typical for the dominant opposition in a
midterm.
1994 Congressional Elections The Democrat-
dominated 103d Congress, which accompanied the
first half of Bill Clinton’s first term as president,
was marked by a lack of effective leadership by ei-
ther congressional members or Clinton. His critics
harped on his ethical problems, mistakes, and scan-
dals, undermining his effectiveness, while Congress
fumbled around seeking a program of real reform.
Campaigns in 1994 featured Democrats who touted
major increases in federal participation in health
care (dubbed “Hillarycare” by opponents, after First
Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, who had led a task
force on health care reform), deficit reduction that
was purely partisan and that would have entailed
large tax increases, and crime reduction via an omni-
bus bill that was encrusted with pork-barrel ear-
marks. The last was refashioned by Republicans un-
der the direction of House minority whip Newt
Gingrich of Georgia, who went on to craft a broadly
based election strategy centered on what he named
the Contract with America. With support from con-
servative talk radio hosts such as Rush Limbaugh,
Republican incumbents and challengers alike
adopted the contract’s ten planks, which embodied
traditional conservative values such as low taxes and
smaller government, governmental transparency
and responsiveness, and “family values” and high
ethical standards in Congress itself.
Though 38.8 percent of the electorate voted, the
roles of younger voters, blacks, and the less well-off
declined. This reduction in the participation of tra-
ditional Democratic partisans and a continuation of
the southern state realignment toward Republicans,
begun under Ronald Reagan, led to a thumping of
the Democrats. Though they expected to lose seats,
Democrats were stunned by the breadth of dissatis-
faction. Not a single Republican incumbent lost his
or her seat. In the Senate, Republicans won eight
seats, including both from Tennessee. This provided
them a narrow 53-47 majority, the first since 1986,
with Bob Dole of Kansas taking the role as Senate
majority leader and Tom Daschle of South Dakota
becoming minority leader. Gingrich’s “Republican
Revolution” changed the face of the House for the
first time since 1954, as Republicans gained fifty-two
seats and the Georgian assumed the role as Speaker.
Even Democratic Speaker Tom Foley of Washington
State lost his seat, an outcome not seen since before
the Civil War. It was the largest Republican victory
since 1920. Clinton would now have a hostile Con-
gress with which to deal.
1998 Congressional Elections Clinton’s victory
over Bob Dole in 1996 had coattail effects that rolled
back some of the effects of the Republican congres-
sional victories, but Clinton’s troubled administra-
tion dampened the impact of disillusionment with
Gingrich’s “revolutionary” Republicans. Buoyed by
a thriving economy, for the first time since 1934
Democrats gained House seats—five—in the midst
of a Democratic administration. The Republican
Senate majority of 55-45 remained the same, with
overall losses balanced by gains. Expected Republi-
can gains did not materialize, a fact that seemed to
vindicate Clinton and weaken the movement toward
his impeachment.
Impact While the 1990 elections were an early sign
of Democratic victories in 1992, the 1994 Republi-
can victories were historic. Though the electorate
was probably engaged more in repudiating Clinton
and his administration’s blunders than embracing
conservatism, the shift of the south toward the con-
servative and increasingly evangelical Christian
wing of the Republican Party would prove long-last-
ing. In addition, Republican victories forced Clinton
to abandon unpopular liberal causes and govern-
ment expansiveness, especially in health care, and
adopt such issues as welfare reform as his own. In
the longer run, they made possible his impeach-
ment.
The 1998 elections disappointed Republicans
and sparked a debate over whether the party needed
to become more centrist, as academic analysts298 Elections in the United States, midterm The Nineties in America