Election to the United States House of Representatives in 1948

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On November 2, 1948, the House of Representatives in the United States was elected. In the state of Maine , the elections took place on September 13th. The election was part of the general election to the 81st United States Congress that year, which also elected a third of US Senators . At the same time the presidential election of 1948 took place, which was won by the Democratic incumbent Harry S. Truman .

At the time of the election, the United States consisted of 48 states. The number of MPs to be elected was 435. The distribution of seats was based on the 1940 census .

The election resulted in a significant gain in votes for the Democrats of 75 seats. With 263 congressmen, they were able to regain their absolute majority, which had been lost two years earlier. The Republicans lost 75 seats and only got 171 seats. The main reasons for the turnaround are, compared to the last elections, the significant increase in voter confidence in the previously extremely unpopular President Harry Truman, who was confirmed in office this year. Truman, for his part, accused the Republicans of blocking his policies in Congress with a majority. Another factor in the elections was the beginning of the Cold War . In this context, the President had promulgated the Truman Doctrine named after him in 1947 , which was honored by the voters. Another plus for Truman and his Democratic Party was the proclamation of the end of racial segregation in the armed forces on July 26, 1948.

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 the right to vote. These restrictions lasted until the 24th Amendment to the United States Constitution was passed in 1964.

Election result

Total: 435 (435)

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 81st 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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