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1966 United States elections
← 1964          1965          1966          1967          1968 →
Midterm elections
Election dayNovember 8
Incumbent president Lyndon B. Johnson (Democratic)
Next Congress 90th
Senate elections
Overall controlDemocratic hold
Seats contested35 of 100 seats
(33 Class 2 seats + 2 special elections)
Net seat changeRepublican +3
1966 United States Senate special election in South Carolina 1966 United States Senate special election in Virginia 1966 United States Senate election in Alabama 1966 United States Senate election in Alaska 1966 United States Senate election in Arkansas 1966 United States Senate election in Colorado 1966 United States Senate election in Delaware 1966 United States Senate election in Georgia 1966 United States Senate election in Idaho 1966 United States Senate election in Illinois 1966 United States Senate election in Iowa 1966 United States Senate election in Kansas 1966 United States Senate election in Kentucky 1966 United States Senate election in Louisiana 1966 United States Senate election in Maine 1966 United States Senate election in Massachusetts 1966 United States Senate election in Michigan 1966 United States Senate election in Minnesota 1966 United States Senate election in Mississippi 1966 United States Senate election in Montana 1966 United States Senate election in Nebraska 1966 United States Senate election in New Hampshire 1966 United States Senate election in New Jersey 1966 United States Senate election in New Mexico 1966 United States Senate election in North Carolina 1966 United States Senate election in Oklahoma 1966 United States Senate election in Oregon 1966 United States Senate election in Rhode Island 1966 United States Senate election in South Carolina 1966 United States Senate election in South Dakota 1966 United States Senate election in Tennessee 1966 United States Senate election in Texas 1966 United States Senate election in Virginia 1966 United States Senate election in West Virginia 1966 United States Senate election in Wyoming
1966 Senate election results

  Democratic gain   Democratic hold

  Republican gain   Republican hold
House elections
Overall controlDemocratic hold
Seats contestedAll 435 voting seats
Popular vote marginDemocratic +1.7%
Net seat changeRepublican +47
1966 House of Representatives election results

  Democratic gain   Democratic hold

  Republican gain   Republican hold
Gubernatorial elections
Seats contested35
Net seat changeRepublican +8
1966 Alabama gubernatorial election 1966 Alaska gubernatorial election 1966 Arizona gubernatorial election 1966 Arkansas gubernatorial election 1966 California gubernatorial election 1966 Colorado gubernatorial election 1966 Connecticut gubernatorial election 1966 Florida gubernatorial election 1966 Georgia gubernatorial election 1966 Hawaii gubernatorial election 1966 Idaho gubernatorial election 1966 Iowa gubernatorial election 1966 Kansas gubernatorial election 1966 Maine gubernatorial election 1966 Maryland gubernatorial election 1966 Massachusetts gubernatorial election 1966 Michigan gubernatorial election 1966 Minnesota gubernatorial election 1966 Nebraska gubernatorial election 1966 Nevada gubernatorial election 1966 New Hampshire gubernatorial election 1966 New Mexico gubernatorial election 1966 New York gubernatorial election 1966 Ohio gubernatorial election 1966 Oklahoma gubernatorial election 1966 Oregon gubernatorial election 1966 Pennsylvania gubernatorial election 1966 Rhode Island gubernatorial election 1966 South Carolina gubernatorial election 1966 South Dakota gubernatorial election 1966 Tennessee gubernatorial election 1966 Texas gubernatorial election 1966 Vermont gubernatorial election 1966 Wisconsin gubernatorial election 1966 Wyoming gubernatorial election
1966 gubernatorial election results

  Democratic gain   Democratic hold

  Republican gain   Republican hold

The 1966 United States elections were held on November 8, 1966, and elected the members of the 90th United States Congress. The election was held in the middle of Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson's second (only full) term, and during the Vietnam War. Johnson's Democrats lost forty-seven seats to the Republican Party in the House of Representatives. The Democrats also lost three seats in the U.S. Senate to the Republicans. Despite their losses, the Democrats retained control of both chambers of Congress. Republicans won a large victory in the gubernatorial elections, with a net gain of seven seats. This was the first election held after the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which led to a surge in African-American voter participation. [1]

The Republican Party had risked sliding into irrelevance after the disastrous 1964 elections, and the GOP's victory in this election invigorated the party, strengthening the conservative coalition. The GOP made inroads into the South and among blue collar workers, foreshadowing Nixon's Southern strategy and the rise of Reagan Democrats, respectively. Among the newly elected Republicans were future presidents Ronald Reagan (who soon became the leader of the right-wing of the Republican Party) as Governor of California and George H. W. Bush as a representative from Texas, and future vice president Spiro Agnew as Governor of Maryland. The election also helped establish former vice president Richard Nixon (who campaigned heavily for Republicans) as a frontrunner for the 1968 Republican nomination. President Johnson was mostly unable to pass major expansions to the Great Society in the 90th Congress. [2]

After the smashing reelection victory of President Johnson in 1964, the Democratic Congress had passed a raft of liberal legislation. Labor union leaders claimed credit for the widest range of liberal laws since the New Deal era, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964; the Voting Rights Act of 1965; the War on Poverty; aid to cities and education; increased Social Security benefits; and Medicare for the elderly. The 1966 elections were an unexpected disaster, with defeats for many of the more liberal Democrats. According to Alan Draper, the AFL-CIO Committee on Political Action (COPE) was the main electioneering unit of the labor movement. It ignored the white backlash against civil rights, which had become a main Republican attack point. The COPE assumed falsely that union members were interested in issues of greatest salience to union leadership, but polls showed this was not true. The members were much more conservative. The younger ones were much more concerned about taxes and crime, and the older ones had not overcome racial biases. Furthermore a new issue – the War in Vietnam – was bitterly splitting the New Deal coalition into hawks (led by Johnson and Vice-President Hubert Humphrey) and doves (led by Senators Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy). [3] [4]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Statistics of the Congressional Election of November 8, 1966" (PDF). U.S. House of Reps, Office of the Clerk. Retrieved 27 December 2011.
  2. ^ Busch, Andrew (1999). Horses in Midstream. University of Pittsburgh Press. pp. 94–100.
  3. ^ Alan Draper, "Labor and the 1966 Elections." Labor History 30.1 (1989): 76-92.
  4. ^ John L. Sullivan, and Robert E. O'Connor. "Electoral choice and popular control of public policy: The case of the 1966 house elections." American Political Science Review 66.4 (1972): 1256-1268.


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