‘Democrats Dominate’: The Democratic Party in Congress and the Midterms of 1974 and 1978

In most histories of the 1970s, the 1978 midterm elections are a harbinger of the ‘Reagan Revolution’ two years later. With the Carter presidency increasingly ensnared by the crises of the 1970s, the Republicans gained seats in the House of Representatives for the first time since Watergate.

This chapter instead puts the focus on the party that technically won those congressional elections: the governing Democratic Party. These were the last midterm elections (to date) in which the Democrats succeeded in maintaining congressional majorities under a Democratic president. Although the Democrats sustained losses in those elections, they still emerged with substantial majorities in both chambers (majorities that either party would envy today). ‘Democrats Dominate’ was the headline in one newspaper. Viewed from another angle, these midterms represented the Democrats consolidating the bumper majorities they had won in the 1974 post-Watergate landslide, and defended in 1976, even in the midst of an increasingly hostile political climate.

This chapter aims to re-capture this moment, not as the twilight of the long Democratic hegemony, but as a moment of contingency when the Democrats sought to rejuvenate their position as the nation’s majority party.