United States elections, 1894

Partisan control of Congress and the presidency

	Previous party	Incoming party
President	Democratic	Democratic
House	Democratic	Republican
Senate	Democratic	Republican

The 1894 United States elections was held on November 6, and elected the members of the 54th United States Congress. These were mid-term elections during Democratic President Grover Cleveland's second term. The Republican landslide of 1894 marked a realigning election In American politics as the nation moved from the Third Party System that had focused on issues of civil war and reconstruction, and entered the Fourth Party System, known as the Progressive Era, which focused on middle class reforms.^[1]

The Democrats suffered a landslide defeat in the House losing over 100 seats to the Republicans^[2] in the single largest swing in the history of the House. The Democrats also lost four seats in the Senate,^[3] thus resulting in the President's party completely losing control of both houses of Congress, the first time this ever happened in a midterm election.

The Democratic Party losses can be traced largely to the Panic of 1893 and the ineffective party leadership of Cleveland. Republicans effectively used the issues of the tariff, bimetallism, and the Cuban War of Independence against Cleveland. The Democrats suffered huge defeats outside of the South (almost ninety percent of Northeastern and Midwestern House Democrats lost re-election), and the Democratic Party underwent a major turnover in party leadership. With the defeat of many Bourbon Democrats, William Jennings Bryan took the party in a more populist direction starting with the 1896 elections.^[4]

Federal

• United States House of Representatives elections, 1894
• United States Senate elections, 1894

States

• South Carolina gubernatorial election, 1894
• Pennsylvania gubernatorial election, 1894

See also

• United States presidential election, 1892
• United States House of Representatives elections, 1892
• United States Senate elections, 1892

References

1. Walter Dean Burnham, "The system of 1896: An analysis." in Paul Kleppner et al. The evolution of American electoral systems (1981): 166-69.
2. "Party Divisions of the House of Representatives". United States House of Representatives. Retrieved 25 June 2014.
3. "Party Division in the Senate, 1789-Present". United States Senate. Retrieved 25 June 2014.
4. Busch, Andrew (1999). Horses in Midstream. University of Pittsburgh Press. pp. 63–71.

Further reading

• Jensen, Richard J. (1971). The Winning of the Midwest: Social and Political Conflict, 1888-1896. U of Chicago Press. p. 209ff.
• Lewis, J. Eugene. "The Tennessee Gubernatorial Campaign and Election of 1894." Tennessee Historical Quarterly (1954): 99-126. in JSTOR
• McCormick, Richard L. From Realignment to Reform: Political Change in New York State 1893-1910 (1981).
• Petersen, Eric Falk. "The End of an Era: California's Gubernatorial Election of 1894." Pacific Historical Review 38.2 (1969): 141-156. in JSTOR