This Series
With the midterms rapidly approaching, I decided to do a series on other midterms in the past. In general, the president’s party has lost seats in these elections, as the opposition is galvanized and the president’s party is usually unable to hold marginal seats without a coattail effect. The effect can be negligible, massive, or even entirely absent (though this is definitely atypical). So we’ll begin just under a century ago, in 1922.
Introduction
The Republicans had won a massive landslide in 1920, as Warren Harding won over 60% of the vote and Republicans winning an astonishing 303 seats in the House, leaving the Democrats with only 131 seats, ninety percent of these in southern states where the Republicans were mostly non-competitive (one seat in New York was held by the Socialist Party). But having achieved this massive majority, Republicans proceeded to fritter it away in the worst possible way; the party was deeply divided between conservative and progressive factions (most of the new Republican freshman and those elected in 1918 were more conservative than those who had come in during the Wilson, Taft, and Roosevelt years), and President Harding was an isolationist, hidebound conservative who was utterly out of his depth in the White House (sound familiar?). Harding’s initial popularity sunk rapidly as graft and bribery scandals rocked many executive departments, culminating in the first hearing on the Teapot Dome Scandal in April 1922. Harding also angered blue-collar workers in his harsh response to a large railroad strike that had begun in July, and then alienated World War I veterans by vetoing the World War Adjusted Compensation Act in September. With the president under fire and the Republicans defending an unusually high number of marginal seats due to the large gains in 1918 and 1920, Republican losses seemed inevitable, despite a strong economy. A particularly ominous warning sign was a special election in the New York 37th district; here Rep. Alanson Haughton had resigned to become ambassador to Germany, and his Republican successor was elected by a margin of only 8 percent, compared to a previous election won by Haughton by over 25 percent.
Overall Results
The Republicans endured a crushing loss at the polls on November 7th. They lost 75 seats to the Democrats, 2 seats to the Farmer-Labor Party, and one seat to the Socialists. The Democrats nominally lost one seat when one member (Guy Campbell of Pennsylvania) switched parties before the election, but no incumbent Democrats were defeated, and no open seats vacated by Democrats changed parties. This was the largest shift in seats in the 20th century that did not result in a change in party control, and the largest shift in a single election until 1932. The Republicans declined from 303 to 225 seats, and the Democrats went from 131 to 207 seats. The Farmer-Labor Party (a left-populist party in Minnesota) entered the chamber with 2 seats, while the Socialists retained one seat, but a different seat than before; Meyer London of New York had been defeated by a Democrat, but Victor Berger of Wisconsin defeated a Republican incumbent.
The heaviest Republican losses had been in Ohio, Missouri, and New York, with smaller but still sizable losses in Indiana, Illinois, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Oklahoma, and New Jersey. Missouri was an especially striking reversal, as the state went from 14-2 Republican to 11-5 Democratic. New Jersey went from having only one Democrat to being equally divided. The Number of Democrats in the New York delegation jumped from 9 to 23. In Ohio, Democrats went from holding no seats at all to holding 6, and went from 3 to 7 in Oklahoma.
A majority of the Republicans defeated were freshmen, with 49 first-term members sent packing. Another 13 defeated Republicans had been elected in a midterm surge of their own in 1918. Overall, the Republicans remaining were mostly the old guard who had been serving during or before the Wilson administration. The longest-serving Republican incumbents defeated were the two from Minnesota, both elected in 1902, who lost to Farmer-Labor challengers. One of these, Andrew Volstead, had infamously sponsored the federal law that enforced the prohibition amendment, the harshness of which had shocked and angered even some friendly to prohibition.
Miscellaneous Notes
There was no seat reapportionment for this election, despite the 1920 census and the constitutional requirement to do so. The reason for this is highly controversial, and not agreed upon by historians. Some, such as Daniel Okrent, are firm in the belief that this was done for nakedly political reasons to prevent urban (and anti-prohibition) members from being able to outnumber rural and small-town members. Others note that from 1890 onward the House was apportioned in such a way that continually added members every census, such that no state ever lost a seat, and the new seats would be distributed proportionally; had the 1920 reapportionment been done in this way, a House of 483 members would have resulted, and there was insufficient space for this many members in the chamber. This, to me, is a somewhat weak excuse, but in any case a reapportionment did not take place until 1929, when a bill was passed fixing the number of House seats at 435 and requiring states to gain or lose seats as population proportions demanded.
One other minor note: Pennsylvania passed a law abolishing at-large districts for House members before this election, and the legislature consequently abolished the state’s two at-large seats and redrew the district boundaries with 36 single-member districts. This meant that roughly one in three Pennsylvania members ran in differently-numbered districts than in the previous election. since the at-large seats were all Republican held, the new districts were only nominally Republican gains, and are thus not counted as open seat Republican gains for the purpose of this review.
Open Seats Flipping from Republican to Democratic
Indiana 3rd: James Dunbar (R) retired, replaced by Frank Gardner (D)
Massachusetts 7th: Robert Maloney (R) retired, replaced by William Connery (D)
Michigan 1st: George Codd (R) retired, replaced by Robert Clancy (D)
Missouri 16th: Samuel Shelton (R) retired, replaced by Thomas Rubey (D)
Nebraska 1st: Frank Reavis (R) resigned to work for the Attorney General, was replaced by John Morehead (D)
Nevada At-Large: Samuel Arentz (R) retired to run for U.S. Senate, was replaced by Charles Richards (D)
New Hampshire 1st: Sherman Burroughs (R) retired, replaced by William Rogers (D)
New Jersey 8th: Herbert Taylor (R) was defeated in the Republican primary, his replacement lost to Frank McNulty (D)
New Mexico At-Large: Nestor Montoya (R) was defeated in the Republican primary, his replacement lost to John Morrow (D)
New York 38th: Thomas Dunn (R) retired, was replaced by Meyer Jacobstein (D)
Ohio 14th: Charles Knight (R) retired to run for governor, was replaced by Martin Davey (D)
Pennsylvania 22nd: Edward Brooks (R) retired, was replaced by Samuel Glatfelter (D)
Rhode Island 3rd: Ambrose Kennedy (R) retired, was replaced by Jeremiah O’Connell (D)
Tennessee 3rd: Joseph Edgar Brown (R) retired, was replaced by Sam McReynolds (D)
Virginia 9th: C. Bascom Slemp (R) retired, was replaced by George Peery (D)
Open Seats Flipping from Democratic to Republican
Pennsylvania 36th: Guy Campbell (D) switched party to Republican, was re-elected
Republicans Defeated in the General Election
Connecticut 5th: James Glynn (R) was defeated by Patrick O’Sullivan (D)
Delaware At-Large: Caleb Layton (R) was defeated by William Boyce (D)
Illinois 6th: John Gorman (R) was defeated by James Buckley (D)
Illinois 20th: Guy Shaw (R) was defeated by Henry Rainey (D)
Illinois 21th: Loren Wheeler (R) was defeated by J. Earl Major (D)
Illinois 23rd: Edwin Brooks (R) was defeated by William Arnold (D)
Indiana 1st: Oscar Luhring (R) was defeated by William Wilson (D)
Indiana 2nd: Oscar Bland (R) was defeated by Arthur Greenwood (D)
Indiana 4th: John Benham (R) was defeated by Harry Canfield (D)
Indiana 11th: Milton Kraus (R) was defeated by Samuel Cook (D)
Kansas 8th: Richard Bird (R) was defeated by William Ayres (D)
Maryland 2nd: Albert Blakeney (R) was defeated by Millard Tydings (D)
Minnesota 7th: Andrew Volstead (R) was defeated by Ole Kvale (Farmer-Labor)
Minnesota 9th: Halvor Steenerson (R) was defeated by Knud Wefald (Farmer-Labor)
Missouri 1st: Frank Millspaugh (R) was defeated by Milton Romjue (D)
Missouri 3rd: Henry Lawrence (R) was defeated by Jacob Milligan (D)
Missouri 5th: Edgar Ellis (R) was defeated by Henry Jost (D)
Missouri 6th: William Atkeson (R) was defeated by Clement Dickinson (D)
Missouri 7th: Roscoe Patterson (R) was defeated by Samuel Major (D)
Missouri 9th: Theodore Hukriede (R) was defeated by Clarence Cannon (D)
Missouri 13th: Marion Rhodes (R) was defeated by J. Scott Wolff (D)
Missouri 14th: Edward Hays (R) was defeated by James Fulbright (D)
Montana 1st: Washington McCormick (R) was defeated by John Evans (D)
Nebraska 3rd: Robert Evans (R) was defeated by Edgar Howard (D)
Nebraska 5th: William Andrews (R) was defeated by Ashton Shallenberger (D)
New Jersey 3rd: T. Frank Appleby (R) was defeated by Elmer Geran (D)
New Jersey 4th: Elijah Hutchinson (R) was defeated by Charles Browne (D)
New Jersey 9th: Richard Parker (R) was defeated by Daniel Minahan (D)
New Jersey 11th: Archibald Olpp (R) was defeated by John Eagan (D)
New York 3rd: John Kissel (R) was defeated by George Lindsay (D). Kissel was the worst-defeated Republican incumbent, winning only 26% of the vote.
New York 5th: Ardolph Kline (R) was defeated by Loring Black (D)
New York 6th: Warren Lee (R) was defeated by Charles Stengle (D)
New York 7th: Michael Hogan (R) was defeated by John Quayle (D)
New York 8th: Charles Bond (R) was defeated by William Cleary (D)
New York 9th: Andrew Petersen (R) was defeated by David O’Connell (D)
New York 10th: Lester Volk (R) was defeated by Emanuel Celler (D)
New York 15th: Thomas Ryan (R) was defeated by John Boylan (D)
New York 19th: Walter Chandler (R) was defeated by Samuel Marx (D)
New York 21st: Martin Ansorge (R) was defeated by Royal Weller (D)
New York 23rd: Albert Rossdale (R) was defeated by Frank Oliver (D)
New York 24th: Benjamin Fairchild (R) was defeated by James Ganly (D)
Ohio 9th: William Chalmers (R) was defeated by Isaac Sherwood (D)
Ohio 11th: Edwin Ricketts (R) was defeated by Mell Underwood (D)
Ohio 16th: Joseph Himes (R) was defeated by John McSweeney (D)
Ohio 20th: Miner Norton (R) was defeated by Charles Mooney (D)
Ohio 21st: Harry Gahn (R) was defeated by Robert Crosser (D)
Oklahoma 1st: Thomas Chandler (R) was defeated by Everette Howard (D)
Oklahoma 2nd: Alice Robertson (R) was defeated by William Hastings (D)
Oklahoma 4th: Joseph Pringey (R) was defeated by Tom McKeown (D)
Oklahoma 6th: L.M. Gensman (R) was defeated by Elmer Thomas (D)
Oregon 3rd: Clifton McArthur (R) was defeated by Elton Watkins (D)
Pennsylvania 12th: Clarence Coughlin (R) was defeated by John Casey (D)
Pennsylvania 14th: Fred Gernerd (R) was defeated by William Croll (D)
Pennsylvania 17th: I. Clinton Kline (R) was defeated by Herbert Cummings (D)
Pennsylvania 19th: Aaron Shenk Kreider (R) was defeated by Frank Sites (D)
Pennsylvania 30th: William Kirkpatrick (R) was defeated by Everett Kent (D)
Tennessee 4th: Wynne Clouse (R) was defeated by Cordell Hull (D)
Tennessee 8th: Lon Scott (R) was defeated by Gordon Browning (D)
West Virginia 2nd: George Bowers (R) was defeated Robert E. L. Allen (D)
West Virginia 4th: Harry Woodyard (R) was defeated by George Johnson (D)
West Virginia 5th: Wells Goodykoontz (R) was defeated by Thomas Lilly (D)
West Virginia 6th: Leonard Echols (R) was defeated J. Alfred Taylor (D)
Wisconsin 5th: William Stafford (R) was defeated by Victor Berger (Socialist)
Third Party Members Defeated
New York 12th: Meyer London (Socialist) was defeated by Samuel Dickstein (D)
The Aftermath
The Republicans had lost the entirety of their gains in the previous election, plus about half of their gains in the 1918 election. Prohibition skeptics greatly increased in numbers, as urban northern districts went Democratic in large numbers; many of these districts had flipped Republican for a single term after many Irish and German immigrant communities boycotted the Cox-Roosevelt ticket in 1920 over remarks that seemed to criticize those communities from President Wilson. At the time, the Democrats appeared to be surging back, in spite of economic good times, because while both parties had progressive and conservative wings, the Democrats were generally more progressive in their leanings, even in the west and south, while Republicans’ midwestern members were often much more conservative than the western and northeastern members. But the large influx of Democrats from urban areas combined with a resurgence in the border states meant that the principal issues dividing the Democrats, prohibition and the resurgent Ku Klux Klan, became much more of a sticking point. This ultimately contributed to Democratic division in 1924, resulting in a loss of one third of the seats they had gained in 1922.