1966 United States elections
← 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 → Midterm elections | |
Election day | November 8 |
---|---|
Incumbent president | Lyndon B. Johnson (Democratic) |
Next Congress | 90th |
Senate elections | |
Overall control | Democratic hold |
Seats contested | 35 of 100 seats (33 Class 2 seats + 2 special elections) |
Net seat change | Republican +3 |
1966 Senate election results
Democratic gain Democratic hold | |
House elections | |
Overall control | Democratic hold |
Seats contested | All 435 voting seats |
Popular vote margin | Democratic +1.7% |
Net seat change | Republican +47 |
1966 House of Representatives election results
Democratic gain Democratic hold | |
Gubernatorial elections | |
Seats contested | 35 |
Net seat change | Republican +8 |
1966 gubernatorial election results
Democratic gain Democratic hold |
The 1966 United States elections were held on November 8, 1966, and elected the members of the
The Republican Party had risked sliding into irrelevance after the disastrous
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
See also
- 1966 United States House of Representatives elections
- 1966 United States Senate elections
- 1966 United States gubernatorial elections
References
- ^ "Statistics of the Congressional Election of November 8, 1966" (PDF). U.S. House of Reps, Office of the Clerk. Retrieved 27 December 2011.
- ^ Busch, Andrew (1999). Horses in Midstream. University of Pittsburgh Press. pp. 94–100.
- ^ Alan Draper, "Labor and the 1966 Elections." Labor History 30.1 (1989): 76-92.
- ^ 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.