Forty years of Democratic dominance in the U.S. Congress came to a stunning end on November 8, when the Republican Party rode a tidal wave of anti-incumbent sentiment to victory in the midterm elections. The Republicans took control of both houses of Congress for the first time since 1954 as voters delivered a strong rejection of Pres. Bill Clinton and his policies. The Republicans picked up a net gain of 53 seats in the House of Representatives and 7 in the Senate. The last time such carnage had been seen in Congress was in 1958, when Republicans lost 48 House and 13 Senate seats. Moreover, the Republicans won a majority of congressional seats from the South for the first time since the Civil War.

Not a single Republican incumbent was defeated, while 37 Democratic incumbents were denied reelection. The most prominent casualty was Rep. Thomas Foley of Washington, the first speaker of the House to lose since 1862. The election results underscored not only a shift in party control but an ideological and generational transformation as well. The Republican triumph was seen by many analysts as having been fueled by the “angry white male” vote, so-called because conservative white men, protesting higher taxes, affirmative action, and gun control and advocating tougher measures on crime, had voted in large numbers for the GOP. More than half of the new House would consist of members with four years of service or less.

The winds of change were most in evidence in the House, which had been continuously controlled by the Democrats since 1954 and for all but four years since the first term of Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932. The new House would be composed of 230 Republicans, 204 Democrats, and 1 independent.