Election to the United States House of Representatives in 1886

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The election to the 1886 House of Representatives of the United States took place on November 2, 1886. The House of Representatives was elected in the United States . Elections were held between June 7th and September 10th in three states. The election was part of the general election for the 50th United States Congress that year, which also elected a third of US Senators . Since the elections took place around the middle of the term of office of Democratic President Grover Cleveland ( Midterm Election ), they were also considered a vote on the previous policy of the President.

At the time of the election, the United States consisted of 38 states. The number of MPs to be elected was 325. The distribution of seats was based on the 1880 census .

In the elections, the Democrats lost 15 seats, but were able to maintain their absolute majority in the House of Representatives. On the other hand, the Republicans won 11 seats. The main reason for this slight change in favor of the Republicans was in the states of the Midwest. A discussion about customs laws had broken out there. These laws were designed to protect local industries from cheap imports, and were backed by Republicans and opposed by Democrats. This rejection then cost the Democrats votes.

Only men were entitled to vote and eligible for election. Women were still banned from voting at the federal level until 1920. In the southern states in particular, the right to vote was restricted by laws that linked the right to vote to a certain tax revenue. As a result, poor whites, but above all many African-Americans, were excluded from voting.

Election result

Total: 325 (325)

The results of the last election two years earlier are in brackets. Changes during the legislative period that do not affect the elections themselves are not included in these figures, but are noted in the article on the 50th Congress in the section on the members of the House of Representatives under the relevant names of the representatives. The same applies to elections in states that joined the Union after the beginning of the legislative period. As a result, the sources sometimes contain different information, as changes during the legislative period were sometimes incorporated into the figures and sometimes not.

See also

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