2006 U.S. Midterm Elections

Key figures: Nancy Pelosi (House Minority Leader / Speaker-designate); Harry Reid (Senate Minority Leader / Majority Leader-elect); George W. Bush (President); Donald Rumsfeld (Secretary of Defense, resigned); Rahm Emanuel (DCCC Chair); Chuck Schumer (DSCC Chair); Dennis Hastert (outgoing House Speaker); Keith Ellison (first Muslim elected to Congress)

Summary

On November 7, 2006, Americans voted in midterm elections that produced a decisive shift of power from Republicans to Democrats across all three electoral arenas—House, Senate, and governorships. Democrats gained 31 seats in the House of Representatives, securing a 233–202 majority and ending 12 years of uninterrupted Republican control dating to the 1994 “Contract with America” wave election. In the Senate, Democrats gained 6 seats, reaching 49 members; combined with independents Bernie Sanders (Vermont) and Joe Lieberman (Connecticut) who caucused with them, the party commanded a 51–49 functional majority.

Exit polling conducted by the Associated Press and television networks identified the Iraq War as the single most important issue for voters: 63% disapproved of the war and 57% of those voters chose Democratic House candidates. President George W. Bush’s job approval rating stood at approximately 37–38% on Election Day—the lowest of his presidency to that point. The wave was immediate: the morning after the election, November 8, President Bush announced that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was resigning and that he would nominate former CIA Director Robert Gates as his replacement.

Background and Context

The Political Environment

The 2006 elections took place in a political environment defined by three interlocking crises for the Republican Party:

1. The Iraq War: By November 2006, more than 2,800 U.S. military personnel had been killed in Iraq and the conflict had cost approximately $350 billion. Violence between Sunni insurgents, Shia militias, and U.S.-Iraqi forces had reached its peak, with the UN reporting 34,452 Iraqi civilian deaths in 2006—a rate of roughly 3,000 per month in the second half of the year.

2. Hurricane Katrina (August–September 2005): The federal government’s widely criticised response to the catastrophe that killed approximately 1,800 people and devastated New Orleans severely damaged the Republican brand on competence in government.

3. Congressional scandals: Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) resigned on September 29, 2006 after reports emerged of inappropriate electronic communications with underage male House pages; subsequent reporting indicated that House Speaker Dennis Hastert’s office had been warned about Foley’s behaviour and taken no action. Separately, the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal—which led to convictions or guilty pleas involving multiple Republican officials, including Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH)—had festered through 2005–2006.

Democratic Strategy

Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) Chair Rahm Emanuel recruited a roster of moderate, locally viable candidates for competitive Republican-held seats, including veterans, law enforcement officials, and anti-abortion Democrats in conservative districts. Senate Democratic Campaign Committee (DSCC) Chair Chuck Schumer deployed a parallel recruitment strategy in the Senate. Together they produced a candidate quality advantage in swing races that multiplied the structural environment.

Election Results

House of Representatives

Democrats flipped seats across the country, with particularly notable gains in suburban Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Connecticut. The incoming class included numerous members who had won in districts that Bush had carried in 2004, complicating any characterisation of the result as merely a base mobilisation.

Senate

Democrats flipped six seats:

Republicans retained all other seats. The Virginia race between Allen and Webb was not called until the morning of November 9, as Allen declined to concede for several days before ultimately doing so on November 9, relinquishing the Republican Senate majority without triggering a recount.

Governorships

Democrats gained six governorships on a net basis, expanding their majority to 28–22. New Democratic governors were elected in Ohio, Colorado, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, and Arkansas. The Massachusetts result—Deval Patrick’s election as the second African-American governor of a U.S. state since Reconstruction—received particular attention.

Historic Milestones

• Nancy Pelosi (D-CA, San Francisco), elected by House Democrats as their caucus leader on November 16, 2006, was confirmed as the 52nd Speaker of the House on January 4, 2007—the first woman in American history to serve as Speaker.
• Keith Ellison (D-MN) was elected in Minnesota’s 5th District, becoming the first Muslim elected to the U.S. Congress. He was sworn in on January 4, 2007, using a Quran that had belonged to Thomas Jefferson.
• Bernie Sanders (I-VT) won his Senate race, becoming the first self-described democratic socialist elected to the U.S. Senate.

Aftermath

Rumsfeld’s Resignation and Iraq Policy

The resignation of Donald Rumsfeld on November 8 signalled the most dramatic immediate policy consequence. Rumsfeld, who had overseen the 2003 invasion and the subsequent occupation, had been under pressure from several retired generals in spring 2006 and from within the White House for months. Robert Gates, a former CIA Director and member of the Iraq Study Group, was confirmed by the Senate 95–2 on December 6, 2006.

The Iraq Study Group (chaired by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Rep. Lee Hamilton) released its report on December 6, 2006, recommending a phased withdrawal of U.S. combat forces, engagement with Iran and Syria, and a shift toward training Iraqi forces. Despite the bipartisan panel’s recommendations, President Bush on January 10, 2007 announced the surge—a deployment of approximately 21,500 additional U.S. troops to Iraq—directly contrary to the ISG’s advice and over the objections of the new Democratic Congress.

The 110th Congress

The 110th Congress convened on January 3, 2007. Democrats immediately passed a reform package through the House in their first 100 hours, including implementation of the 9/11 Commission recommendations, an increase in the federal minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 per hour (the first increase since 1997), and measures on stem cell research and drug pricing. The Senate separately passed the minimum wage increase in February 2007.

Democratic committees launched investigations into Bush administration policies including the NSA warrantless surveillance program, the firing of U.S. Attorneys, conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and conduct at the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay detention facilities.

Significance

The 2006 midterm elections marked the most decisive congressional realignment since 1994. The Democratic victories represented the largest House seat gain for any party since the 1974 post-Watergate elections (when Democrats gained 49 seats). They demonstrated the political costs of prolonged military commitments with ambiguous outcomes, established the “sixth-year itch” as a durable feature of American electoral politics, and produced the first female Speaker of the House—a milestone in American political history.

The elections also signalled the limits of Karl Rove’s Republican base-mobilisation strategy: base turnout was insufficient when a majority of independent voters broke sharply against the incumbent party. The new Democratic majority would serve as a persistent check on executive authority through the end of the Bush presidency in January 2009.

The results were linked directly to the Iraq War’s trajectory: weeks before the election, North Korea had conducted its first nuclear test (October 9), and weeks after, Saddam Hussein was executed (December 30)—bookends that underscored the foreign policy volatility the incoming Democratic Congress would face.

Sources

• 2006 United States elections – Wikipedia
• Rumsfeld Resigns; Democrats Seize House – NPR
• Defense Secretary Rumsfeld Resigns, Bush Appoints Former CIA Director Successor – PBS NewsHour
• 2006 Midterm Elections – Miller Center, University of Virginia
• The 110th Congress: First 100 Hours – U.S. House of Representatives History, Art & Archives