Robert Remini, in his official history of the House, cites Taft-Hartley as a key reason for Truman’s upset victory and the Democrats’ retaking of the House. Taft-Hartley remains quite relevant today: Earlier this year, Wisconsin became the nation’s 25th right-to-work state. Over Truman’s veto, Congress passed the Taft-Hartley Act, which forbade closed shops and also opened the door to individual states passing “right-to-work” laws, which allow workers who are not members of a union to avoid paying dues in a unionized workplace. The Republican House (and Senate) didn’t “do nothing” while in power they actually did something incredibly significant during their two years controlling Congress between 19. Harry Truman’s smashing victory and his party’s 75-seat net House gain is the most recent precedent for a president whose party is reelected to the White House also flipping control of the House in the same election, and Truman’s argument against a “do-nothing Congress” is one that Democrats could attempt to replicate either in 2016 or in 2020. But there’s one exception, 1948, which merits further examination. Either the president’s party retained the House, or the president’s party stayed in the minority. Of the 13 elections featuring reelected presidents referenced above, the president’s party generally gained seats, but control of the House did not change during those elections. They are just ones that take a tremendous leap of faith to predict. Again, one can concoct scenarios whereby a President Hillary Clinton controls the House during her term. In only nine of the last 39 midterms has the president’s party lost eight or fewer seats. However, there’s a midterm to be held in between those elections, and Democrats could only afford to lose eight seats, no more, to control the House in 2021 under this scenario. That’s a 38-seat net gain, or eight more than they need to win the House. Let’s say Democrats net 19 seats in 2016 and 19 more in 2020, which given the current maps and overall political outlook in the House would be two very successful elections. In those elections, the president’s party netted an average of 19 House seats. Reelected presidents almost always gain seats in the House, at least in the 13 elections since 1900 when a reelected chief executive won a second term (or when a deceased president’s successor wins what would be his first elected term, like Lyndon Johnson in 1964). That leaves 2020, when a President Clinton would try to win a second term and a fourth straight Democratic term in the White House. Not only does history advise against it, but so do the Democrats’ current problems turning out their younger, more diverse electorate in non-presidential years. Perhaps a President Hillary Clinton could preside over a historic midterm breakthrough for her party, but there’s little reason to expect it far in advance. The presidential party’s gains in all three of these years were in the single digits. Bush’s first midterm, conducted under the shadow of 9/11). Unusual circumstances were at play in all three exceptions: 1934 (Franklin Roosevelt’s first midterm against the discredited Republicans), 1998 (Bill Clinton’s second midterm, when his party benefited from a great economy and GOP overreach on impeaching the popular incumbent president), and 2002 (George W. After the GOP’s 2014 midterm victories, which added 13 seats to the party’s already impressive House majority, the president’s party has now lost ground in the House in 36 of 39 midterm elections dating back to the Civil War. Midterm elections almost always go poorly for the president’s party. If that happens, Clinton would have at most three more opportunities to preside over a Democratic House takeover - a midterm (2018), a second presidential election (2020), and a second midterm (2022), assuming she wins reelection. Let’s assume that Clinton is elected but that Democrats do not win control of the House. That’s not a firm prediction, but it is what history strongly suggests, particularly if she is elected next year without a House majority.ĭemocrats currently have a fairly large deficit in the House: The Republican majority is 247-188**, meaning that Democrats would need to win 30 seats next year to take control. If Hillary Clinton wins the White House, there’s a decent chance that she will achieve a historic first, but not the one everybody talks about.Ĭlinton could become the first Democratic president in the party’s nearly two century-long history* to never control the House of Representatives while she’s in office.
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