1946 United States House of Representatives elections

1946 United States House of Representatives elections
All 435 seats in the United States House of Representatives; 218 seats needed for a majority
Speaker before election; Sam Rayburn; Democratic	Elected Speaker ; Joseph Martin; Republican

The 1946 United States House of Representatives elections were elections for the United States House of Representatives to elect members to serve in the 80th United States Congress. They were held for the most part on November 5, 1946, while Maine held theirs on September 9. November 1946 was 19 months after President Harry S. Truman assumed office upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Quick Facts All 435 seats in the United States House of Representatives 218 seats needed for a majority, Majority party ...

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While Democrats had controlled the House for 16 years since 1931 and Roosevelt had been elected to a record four terms in office, Truman did not garner the same support as the deceased president. The 1946 election resulted in Republicans picking up 55 seats to win majority control. Joseph Martin, Republican of Massachusetts, became Speaker of the House, exchanging places with Sam Rayburn, Democrat of Texas, who became the new Minority Leader. The Democratic defeat was the largest since they were trounced in the 1928 pro-Republican wave that brought Herbert Hoover to power. They also lost the Senate in the concurrent Senate elections.

The vote was largely seen as a referendum on Truman, whose approval rating had sunk to 32 percent^[1] over the president's controversial handling of a wave of post-war labor strikes, including a United Auto Workers strike against Ford and General Motors in 1945, a United Mine Workers strike starting in April 1946, and a national railroad worker strike that began in May. Further damage resulted from the back-and-forth over whether to end wartime price controls, unpopular with the American business constituency, to handle shortages, particularly in meat and other foodstuffs. While Truman's early months in the White House had been plagued with questions of "What would Roosevelt do if he were alive?" Republicans now began to joke "What would Truman do if he were alive?" and "To err is Truman."^[2] However, the Republican majority was short-lived, as Democrats regained control of the House two years later.

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246	1	188
Republican	AL	Democratic

More information Party, Total seats ...

Party		Total seats	Change	Seat percentage	Popular vote	Vote percentage
	Republican Party	246	55	56.5%	18,422,363	53.5%
	Democratic Party	188	54	43.2%	15,491,113	45.0%
	American Labor Party	1		0.2%	196,866	0.6%
	Independent	0		0.0%	77,425	0.2%
	Liberal Party	0		0.0%	61,111	0.2%
	Prohibition Party	0		0.0%	47,792	0.1%
	Socialist Party	0		0.0%	38,307	0.1%
	J. Veterans Party	0		0.0%	9,791	<0.1%
	U. Citizens Party	0		0.0%	5,688	<0.1%
	Communist Party	0		0.0%	3,408	<0.1%
	Independent Voters Party	0		0.0%	2,834	<0.1%
	Veterans' Victory Party	0		0.0%	2,208	<0.1%
	Socialist Workers Party	0		0.0%	1,936	<0.1%
	Justice, Decency, Independence Party	0		0.0%	1,865	<0.1%
	Socialist Labor Party	0		0.0%	980	<0.1%
	Constitutional Government Party	0		0.0%	890	<0.1%
	No Foreign Loans Party	0		0.0%	396	<0.1%
	Workers Party	0		0.0%	165	<0.1%
	Progressive Democratic Party	0		0.0%	141	<0.1%
	$250 State Bonds Party	0		0.0%	115	<0.1%
	Others	0	1	0.0%	44,930	0.1%
Totals		435		100.0%	34,410,324	100.0%

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Source: Election Statistics - Office of the Clerk

More information Popular vote ...

Popular vote

Republican			53.54%
Democratic			45.02%
American Labor			0.57%
Others			0.87%

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More information House seats ...

House seats

Republican			56.55%
Democratic			43.22%
American Labor			0.23%

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More information House seats by party holding plurality in state ...

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In these special elections, the winner was seated during 1946 or before January 3, 1947; ordered by election date, then by district.