1934 United States House of Representatives elections

The 1934 United States House of Representatives elections were elections for the United States House of Representatives to elect members to serve in the 74th United States Congress. They were held for the most part on November 6, 1934, while Maine held theirs on September 10. They occurred in the middle of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's first term. The Democratic Party continued its progress, gaining another 9 net seats from the opposition Republican Party, who also lost seats to the Progressive Party. The Republicans were reduced below one-fourth of the chamber for the first time since the creation of the party. The Wisconsin Progressive Party, a liberal group which allied with the Democrats, also became a force in Wisconsin politics.

1934 United States House of Representatives elections

November 6, 1934

All 435 seats in the United States House of Representatives
218 seats needed for a majority
  Majority party Minority party
 
Leader Jo Byrns Bertrand Snell
Party Democratic Republican
Leader since January 3, 1935 March 4, 1931
Leader's seat Tennessee 5th New York 31st
Last election 313 seats 117 seats
Seats won 322 103
Seat change 9 14
Popular vote 17,542,400 13,434,477
Percentage 53.92% 41.29%
Swing 0.56% 0.79%

  Third party Fourth party
 
Party Progressive Farmer–Labor
Last election 0 seats 5 seats
Seats won 7 3
Seat change 7 2
Popular vote 425,839 395,040
Percentage 1.31% 1.21%
Swing Pre-creation 0.20%


Speaker before election

Henry Rainey
Democratic

Elected Speaker

Jo Byrns
Democratic

The 1934 elections can be seen as a referendum on New Deal policies. While conservatives and people among the middle class who did not bear the brunt of the depression saw New Deal programs as radical, lower-income voters overwhelmingly voted in this election cycle to continue the implementation of Roosevelt's agenda. This marked the first time that an incumbent president's party did not lose seats in either house in a midterm election, followed by 1998 and 2002.

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.