Election to the United States House of Representatives in 1946
On November 5, 1946, the United States ' House of Representatives was elected. In the state of Maine , the election took place on September 9th. The election was part of the general election for the 80th United States Congress that year, which also elected a third of US Senators . Since the election took place around the middle of the first term of office of Democratic President Harry S. Truman ( Midterm Election ), it was also considered a vote on Truman's previous policy.
At the time of the election, the United States consisted of 48 states. 435 MPs had to be elected. The distribution of seats was based on the 1940 census .
The Republicans won 246 seats, 57 more than in the previous election. The Democrats lost 56 seats and got 188 seats. They lost the absolute majority they had held since 1931. President Harry S. Truman, who came into office in April 1945 after the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt, did not enjoy the popularity of his predecessor from the start. In addition, there was his controversial approach in various labor disputes of that time and the controversial lifting of the price controls previously caused by the war , especially in the case of food.
Especially in the southern states, laws linked the right to vote to a certain minimum tax revenue . As a result, poor whites and many non-whites (including African-Americans ) had no right to vote. These restrictions lasted until the 24th Amendment to the United States Constitution was passed in January 1964.
Election result
- Democratic Party 188 (244) seats
- Republican Party 246 (189) seats
- Wisconsin Progressive Party : 0 (1)
- Others: 1 (1)
Total: 435 (435)
The results of the last election two years earlier are in brackets. Changes in the course of the legislative period that do not affect the elections themselves are not included in these figures, but are noted in the article on the 80th 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
- 80th United States Congress including a list of all MPs.