Elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1958

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On November 4, 1958, the United States ' House of Representatives was elected. In the state of Maine , the elections took place on September 8th. The election was part of the general election to the 86th United States Congress that year, which also elected a third of US Senators . Since the elections took place around the middle of the second term of the Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower ( 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 48 states. However, one MP ( Ralph Julian Rivers ) (Democrat) from Alaska has already been elected. This state joined the Union at the beginning of the legislative period on January 3, 1959 and was represented in Congress from that point on. This means that 49 states have already been elected, even if Alaska has not yet officially had this status. The number of MPs to be elected was thus 436. (The number of MPs was not adjusted to the regular number of 435 until the elections in 1962). The distribution of seats was based on the 1950 census .

The elections brought clear gains for the Democrats. They gained 48 seats and were thus able to significantly expand their absolute majority. Accordingly, the Republicans lost 48 seats. This means that 282 Democrats sat against 153 Republicans in the newly elected House of Representatives. The reason for the Democrats' gain was an economic crisis that voters blamed the Republican-led federal government. Cold War aspects also played a role. In addition, the federal government was accused of negligence in space policy, especially after the Soviet Sputnik activities that had been going on since 1957 .

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: 436 (435)

The results of the last election two years earlier are in brackets. Changes during the legislative period that do not affect the elections as such are not included in these figures, but are noted in the article on the 86th 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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