1946 United States House of Representatives elections

The 1946 United States House of Representatives elections were elections for the United States House of Representatives to elect members to serve in the 80th United States Congress. They were held for the most part on November 5, 1946, while Maine held theirs on September 9. November 1946 was 19 months after President Harry S. Truman assumed office upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

1946 United States House of Representatives elections

November 5, 1946[lower-alpha 1]
All 435 seats in the United States House of Representatives 218 seats needed for a majority
Majority party Minority party   Leader Joseph Martin Sam Rayburn Party Republican Democratic Leader since January 3, 1939 September 16, 1940 Leader's seat Massachusetts 14th Texas 4th Last election 191 seats 242 seats Seats won 246 188 Seat change 55 54 Popular vote 18,422,363 15,491,113 Percentage 53.5% 45.0% Swing 6.4% 6.8%   Third party Fourth party   Party American Labor Progressive Last election 1 seat 1 seat Seats won 1 0 Seat change 1 Popular vote 196,866 44,930 Percentage 0.6% 0.1% Swing 0.3% 0.1%
Speaker before election Sam Rayburn Democratic Elected Speaker Joseph Martin Republican

While Democrats had controlled the House for 16 years since 1931 and Roosevelt had been elected to a record four terms in office, Truman did not garner the same support as the deceased president. The 1946 election resulted in Republicans picking up 55 seats to win majority control. Joseph Martin, Republican of Massachusetts, became Speaker of the House, exchanging places with Sam Rayburn, Democrat of Texas, who became the new Minority Leader. The Democratic defeat was the largest since they were trounced in the 1928 pro-Republican wave that brought Herbert Hoover to power. They also lost the Senate in the concurrent Senate elections.

The vote was largely seen as a referendum on Truman, whose approval rating had sunk to 32 percent[1] over the president's controversial handling of a wave of post-war labor strikes, including a United Auto Workers strike against Ford and General Motors in 1945, a United Mine Workers strike starting in April 1946, and a national railroad worker strike that began in May. Further damage resulted from the back-and-forth over whether to end wartime price controls, unpopular with the American business constituency, to handle shortages, particularly in meat and other foodstuffs. While Truman's early months in the White House had been plagued with questions of "What would Roosevelt do if he were alive?" Republicans now began to joke "What would Truman do if he were alive?" and "To err is Truman."[2] However, the Republican majority was short-lived, as Democrats regained control of the House two years later.