2006 United States elections
were held in the United States on November 7, 2006, in the middle of Republican President George W. Bush's second term against the backdrop of the war on terror. In a political revolution that ended more than a decade of Republican rule, the Democratic Party was swept into majorities of both chambers of Congress, governorships, and state legislatures. These elections were widely categorized as a Democratic wave.
In the Senate, Democrats won a net gain of six seats to secure a narrow majority in that chamber. Democrats also gained 31 seats in the House of Representatives, and following the election, Nancy Pelosi became the first female speaker of the House. In the gubernatorial elections, Democrats achieved a net gain of six seats. Nationwide, Republicans failed to win any congressional or gubernatorial seat that was held by a Democrat before the election. This was also the first time since 1994 where a party did not lose a single incumbent in a gubernatorial or congressional election.
Reasons for the Democratic Party's victory included the decline of the public image of George W. Bush, dissatisfaction of his administration's handling of both Hurricane Katrina and the War in Iraq, the beginning of the collapse of the United States housing bubble, Bush's legislative defeat regarding Social Security privatization and immigration reform, the Republican-controlled Congress's unprecedented and unpopular involvement in the Terri Schiavo case, and a series of scandals in 2006 involving Republican politicians.
Background
In March 2003, President George W. Bush ordered an invasion of Iraq, a state which the Bush administration claimed was linked to the September 11 attacks in 2001, and claimed was producing weapons of mass destruction. In May, just two months after the initial invasion, Bush announced the end of major combat operations in Iraq. In the following months, insurgents began resisting the American occupation. Additionally, religious tensions between majority Shiite and minority Sunni Muslims, tensions which had been suppressed under the grip of Saddam's regime, resulted in violence.By the end of 2003, despite the war's initial popularity, the post-war occupation was losing support from the American public. A November 2003 Gallup poll showed that Bush's job approval rating had fallen to 50% from a high of 71% at the outset of the war.
The next year, Bush won reelection over Democratic nominee Senator John Kerry with less than 51% of the popular vote and 286 electoral votes, marking the smallest winning margin for an incumbent president since Woodrow Wilson in the 1916 election. However, it was the first time since 1988 that a winner garnered a popular majority.
Terrorism and the war in Iraq dominated the election, with domestic issues taking a secondary role. Bush began his second term with a continuation of the occupation and a push to overhaul Social Security with his privatization plan. Both policies proved unpopular, and violence in Iraq continued to increase. Compounding the unpopularity of the war was the fact that no weapons of mass destruction were found. August 2005 was the last time any major public opinion poll recorded majority approval of Bush's job. Negative perceptions of Bush, following the slow governmental response to Hurricane Katrina, further weighed on his popularity.
Simultaneously, the popularity of the Republican-controlled 109th Congress was also on the decline. A series of notable congressional scandals also took place in Washington, D.C., including the ongoing Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal, as well as the Mark Foley scandal and the Cunningham scandal, both in October 2006. Throughout 2006, sectarian violence persisted in Baghdad and other areas of Iraq; many claimed that the conflict was evolving into a civil war.
President Bush's job approval rarely rose above 40%. Perceptions of Congress and Republicans in general, remained highly negative. Additionally, the Congress had a smaller than average list of major accomplishments and was not in session for a larger than average number of days. This allowed Democrats and others to characterize it as a "Do-Nothing" Congress and blame the Republican leadership for the lack of progress.
Results
The Democratic Party won a majority of the state governorships and the U.S. House and Senate seats, each for the first time since 1994, an election-year commonly known as the "Republican Revolution." For the first time since the creation of the Republican Party in 1854, no Republican captured any House, Senate, or gubernatorial seat previously held by a Democrat.Democrats took a 233–202 advantage in the House of Representatives, and achieved a 49–49 tie in the United States Senate. The Senate figure is sometimes quoted in the media as 51–49, which includes two members who ran as independent candidates: Bernie Sanders and Joe Lieberman, who promised to caucus with the Democrats. The final Senate result was decided when Democrat Jim Webb was declared the winner in Virginia against incumbent George Allen, as reported by the Associated Press. On November 9, 2006, Allen and fellow Republican incumbent Sen. Conrad Burns of Montana both conceded defeat, ceding effective control of the Senate to the Democrats.
The election made Nancy Pelosi the first-ever female, first-ever Italian-American, and first-ever Californian Speaker of the House and Harry Reid the first Mormon Senate Majority Leader. Keith Ellison became the first Muslim ever elected to the U.S. Congress and Mazie Hirono and Hank Johnson became the first Buddhists in a United States governing body. Although seven states banned recognition of same-sex marriage, Arizona became the first state to reject such a ballot initiative. South Dakota rejected a ban on abortion under almost any circumstances, intended to overturn federal constitutional abortion-rights nationwide by setting up a strong test case that proponents hoped would lead to the overruling of Roe v. Wade. This result would eventually happen in 2022, with a Mississippi state law that imposed a 15-week ban on abortion leading to the case Dobbs v. Jackson, which then led to Roe's overturning.
Some of the Republican House and Senate seats lost by the Republicans belonged to members of the Republican Revolution of 1994. Senators Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and Mike DeWine of Ohio, and Representatives Charlie Bass of New Hampshire, John Hostettler of Indiana, Gil Gutknecht of Minnesota, and J. D. Hayworth of Arizona all won previously Democratic seats in 1994 elections and were defeated in 2006. Representative Sue Kelly of New York, also first elected in 1994, was defeated as well. The Democrats also won back the Kansas 2nd and Ohio 18th, both of which they had lost in 1994.
In the 2006 elections, the Democratic Party also claimed a majority of state governorships, gaining control of Republican-held governorships in New York, Massachusetts, Colorado, Arkansas, Maryland, and Ohio, giving the party a 28–22 advantage in governorships.
Various scandals, including the Mark Foley congressional page scandal, the Jack Abramoff scandal, and various allegations of marital infidelity and abuse, doomed certain candidates, especially incumbents in PA-10 and NY-20, which hosted one of the most negative campaigns in the country. Virginia Senator George Allen, a potential Republican 2008 Presidential candidate, saw his chances for reelection disappear when he was caught on video using a racial slur to describe a young Indian-American who worked for his opponent's campaign.
Federal elections
Democrats won control of Congress for the first time since the 1994 election, which is commonly known as the "Republican Revolution." For the first time since the creation of the Republican party in 1854, no Republican captured any House, Senate, or Gubernatorial seat previously held by a Democrat.United States Senate
The 33 seats in the United States Senate Class 1 were up for election. The Democrats gained six Senate seats by defeating Republican Senators in the states of Missouri, Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Virginia. Including Bernie Sanders and Joe Lieberman, two independents who caucused with the Democrats, Democrats won a 51-to-49 majority in the Senate.United States House of Representatives
All 435 seats in the United States House of Representatives were up for election. The Democrats won the national popular vote by a margin of eight percentage points and gained thirty-one seats from the Republicans.The election made Nancy Pelosi the first-ever female, first-ever Italian-American, and first-ever Californian Speaker of the House Keith Ellison became the first Muslim ever elected to the U.S. Congress and Mazie Hirono and Hank Johnson became the first Buddhists in a United States governing body.
State elections
Governors
Of the 50 United States governors, 36 were up for election. Twenty two of those contested seats were held by Republicans, and the remaining 14 were held by Democrats. Of the 36 state governorships up for election, ten were open due to retirement, term limits, or primary loss. Democrats won open Republican-held seats in New York, Massachusetts, Ohio, Arkansas and Colorado, in addition to defeating incumbent Bob Ehrlich in Maryland and holding their sole open seat in Iowa. As a result of the 2006 gubernatorial elections, there were 28 Democratic governors and 22 Republican governors, a reversal of the numbers held by the respective parties prior to the elections.Additionally, governorships were up for election in the U.S. territories of Guam, held by a Republican, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, where the Democratic governor was retiring. In each location, the incumbent party maintained control of the governorship.
State legislatures
Nearly all state legislatures were up for election. Prior to the general elections, with the exception of the nonpartisan Nebraska Legislature, 21 legislatures were controlled by Republicans, 19 by Democrats, and 9 were split legislatures. As a result of the 2006 elections, 23 legislatures were carried by Democrats, 16 by Republicans, and 10 legislatures were split. In all, Republicans lost, and Democrats gained more than 300 state legislative seats.Democrats flipped ten legislative chambers, while Republicans gained control of one. In total, Democrats gained or retained control of the state legislatures and governorships of 15 states, thus creating a unified government in Arkansas, Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Washington and West Virginia, although the governorship of Louisiana reverted to the Republicans with the October 2007 election of Bobby Jindal. Republicans now control ten state governments, these being, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Missouri, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas and Utah.
Democrats flipped ten legislative chambers. Democrats gained control of the Oregon House of Representatives, the Minnesota House of Representatives, both houses of the Iowa General Assembly, and both houses of the New Hampshire General Court- for the first time since 1875, giving them complete legislative control over those states. The Iowa Senate was previously tied. Democrats also won majorities in the Wisconsin Senate, the Michigan House of Representatives, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, and the Indiana House of Representatives, turning those legislatures into split bodies. Additionally, a Democratic-led coalition was created in the Alaska Senate, which was previously a Republican majority. Democrats won a majority of state legislative chambers for the first time since 1995.
Conversely, Republicans gained control of the Montana House of Representatives with the lone Constitution Party representative voting for Republican control of that body.
Democrats won a veto-proof supermajority in both houses of the Connecticut General Assembly, with Democrats holding a commanding 131–56 majority. The most dramatic change in party control occurred with the New Hampshire General Court, where Republicans held a 92-seat majority in the House and an eight-seat majority in the Senate prior to the election. Ultimately, Republicans were down 81 seats in the House and five in the Senate, giving control of the General Court to the Democrats. This coincided with the landslide reelection of Democratic Governor John Lynch, the takeover of both of New Hampshire's U.S. House seats by Democrats, and New Hampshire's unique Executive Council gaining a Democratic majority.