Introduction
Following the 1928 elections, Democratic seats declined to 164, with the party losing many rural, conservative districts in the border state, mid-atlantic, and midwest, though the party largely held its own in the deep south and the urban east. The Republican majority expanded to 270 seats, though many of these were marginal districts that they would likely not have held even if the Great Depression hadn’t hurt their chances. As of 2018, this is the last time the Republicans have ever held more than 247 seats. Following the stock market crash in late 1929, confidence in the economy plunged, and as many banks failed, families increasingly had little savings to fall back on. This resulted in a vicious cycle of low demand and low production, which in turn caused unemployment to increase. The stubborn refusal of many governments to leave the gold standard meant that deflationary pressure made borrowing out of the recession harder. From media reports at the time, few seemed to believe that the Great Depression would be as severe as it would turn out to be, but the economy was clearly contracting, and the Hawley-Smoot Tariff, signed by President Hoover in an attempt to prop up production and increase government revenue, did little to accomplish either and made imports more expensive for the urban and rural poor. With most Americans perceiving Hoover as doing little to alleviate the growing recession, and with the Republicans defending a large number of marginal districts, a large Republican loss seemed all but certain. One early warning sign was a special election in the Massachusetts 2nd district on February 11th; the Democratic candidate won a formerly Republican seat by a comfortable ten percent margin. This was especially worrying since 1928 had actually been a strong year for Democrats in Massachusetts, where presidential candidate Al Smith had actually defeated Hoover.
Overall Results
Republicans were badly beaten, losing 52 seats, slipping to 218 overall. The Democrats gained 52 seats, rising to 216. The lone Farmer-Labor member held his seat. Originally, it seemed Republicans had held onto their majority by a fingernail, but several deaths after the election but before the new Congress convened caused the new session to open with a Democratic majority of 218 seats to the Republicans’ 217, a single-seat majority. Democrats took power for the first time since 1918, and held the majority until 1946. The worst Republican losses were in the border states and upper midwest, where a Republican surge against Al Smith led to an anti-Republican backlash in the wake of the crash and high tariffs. Republicans lost six seats or more in Missouri, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, and Illinois, with scattered other losses in the east and interior midwest.
Almost half of the Republicans who lost were freshmen, with 26 members unable to hold on without Hoover’s coattails. The longest-serving incumbents to lose were two Republicans both elected in 1914.
Miscellaneous Notes
This is the last election using the now very obsolete 1910 census data, as a redistricting bill passed by Congress in 1929 would go into effect for the 1932 elections. In the Illinois 8th district, the defeated incumbent later challenged the results of the election, and the full House later decided to re-seat him and expel his victorious challenger on the basis of likely electoral fraud, but this did not happen until April 1932.
Open Seats Flipping from Republican to Democratic
Connecticut 1st: E. Hart Fenn (R) retired, was replaced by Augustine Lonergan (D)
Illinois 7th: M. Alfred Michaelson (R) lost the Republican primary, his replacement lost to Leonard Schuetz (D)
Illinois 21st: Frank Ramey (R) retired, was replaced by J. Earl Major (D)
Illinois 24th: Thomas Sutler Williams (R) resigned to become a judge on the United States Court of Claims, was replaced by Claude Parsons (D)
Illinois At-Large, Seat B: Ruth McCormick (R) retired to run for U.S. Senate, was replaced by William Dieterich (D)
New Jersey 3rd: Harold Hoffman (R) resigned to become New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commissioner, was replaced by William Sutphin (D)
North Carolina 10th: George Pritchard (R) retired to run for U.S. Senate, was replaced by Zebulon Weaver (D)
Pennsylvania 11th: Laurence Watres (R) retired, was replaced by Patrick Boland (D). This was the only open seat vacated by a Republican in which no Republican candidate ran
Pennsylvania 13th: Charles Esterly (R) retired, was replaced by Norton Lichtenwalner (D)
Wisconsin 6th: Florian Lampert (R) died in office, was replaced by Michael Reilly (D)
Republicans Defeated in the General Election
Connecticut 4th: Schuyler Merritt (R) was defeated by William Tierney (D)
Illinois 3rd: Elliott Sproul (R) was defeated by Edward Kelly (D)
Illinois 22nd: Edward Irwin (R) was defeated by Charles Karch (D)
Illinois 25th: Edward Denison (R) was defeated by Kent Keller (D)
Indiana 1st: Harry Rowbottom (R) was defeated by John Boehne (D)
Indiana 3rd: James Dunbar (R) was defeated by Eugene Crowe (D)
Indiana 5th: Noble Johnson (R) was defeated by Courtland Gillen (D)
Indiana 6th: Richard Elliott (R) was defeated by William Larrabee (D)
Indiana 11th: Albert Hall (R) was defeated by Glenn Griswold (D)
Indiana 13th: Andrew Hickey (R) was defeated by Samuel Pettengill (D)
Iowa 2nd: F. Dickinson Letts (R) was defeated by Bernhard Jacobsen (D)
Kentucky 4th: John Craddock (R) was defeated by Cap Carden (D)
Kentucky 6th: J. Lincoln Newhall (R) was defeated by Brent Spence (D)
Kentucky 7th: Robert Blackburn (R) was defeated by Virgil Chapman (D)
Kentucky 8th: Lewis Walker (R) was defeated by Ralph W. E. Gilbert (D)
Kentucky 9th: Elva Kendall (R) was defeated by Fred Vinson (D)
Kentucky 10th: Katherine Langley (R) was defeated by Andrew May (D)
Maryland 2nd: Linwood Clark (R) was defeated by William Cole (D)
Maryland 6th: Frederick Zihlman (R) was defeated by David Lewis (D)
Missouri 5th: Edgar Ellis (R) was defeated by Joseph Shannon (D)
Missouri 6th: Thomas Halsey (R) was defeated by Clement Dickinson (D)
Missouri 7th: John Palmer (R) was defeated by Samuel Major (D)
Missouri 13th: Charles Keifner (R) was defeated by Clyde Williams (D)
Missouri 14th: Dewey Short (R) was defeated by James Fulbright (D)
Missouri 16th: Rowland Johnston (R) was defeated by William Barton (D)
Nebraska 4th: Charles Sloan (R) was defeated by John Norton (D)
Nebraska 5th: Fred Johnson (R) was defeated by Ashton Shallenberger (D)
New Mexico At-Large: Albert Simms (R) was defeated by Dennis Chavez (D)
North Carolina 9th: Charles Jonas (R) was defeated by Alfred Bulwinkle (D)
Ohio 3rd: Roy Fitzgerald (R) was defeated by Byron Harlan (D)
Ohio 5th: Charles Thompson (R) was defeated by Frank Kniffin (D)
Ohio 6th: Charles Kearns (R) was defeated by James Polk (D)
Ohio 12th: John Speaks (R) was defeated by Arthur Lamneck (D)
Ohio 13th: Joseph Baird (R) was defeated by William Fiesinger (D)
Ohio 17th: William Morgan (R) was defeated by Charles West (D)
Oklahoma 1st: Charles O’Connor (R) was defeated by Wesley Disney (D)
Oklahoma 5th: Ulysses Stone (R) was defeated by Fletcher Swank (D)
Oregon 3rd: Franklin Korell (R) was defeated by Charles Martin (D)
Pennsylvania 22nd: Franklin Menges (R) was defeated by Harry Haines (D)
Virginia 7th: Jacob Garber (R) was defeated by John Fishburne (D)
Virginia 9th: Joseph Shaffer (R) was defeated by John Flannagan (D)
West Virginia 3rd: John Wolverton (R) was defeated by Lynn Hornor (D)
Democrats Defeated in the General Election
Illinois 8th: Stanley Kunz (D) was defeated by Peter Granata (R); Kunz contested the results of the election, and the House eventually decided to reseat him and expel Granata
The Aftermath
The Republicans seemed to barely hold their majority, but ultimately lost it in a series of special elections before the next Congress convened, losing control for the first time since 1918. Because the Democratic leader, John Nance Garner of Texas, was both anti-prohibition and anti-tariff, most voters assumed that Democrats would reverse these now-unpopular policies, but President Hoover stymied attempts to weaken prohibition, though most of the tariffs were replaced by taxes. The Reconstruction Finance Act also attempted to counteract the early effects of the Great Depression by making government-backed loans to keep banks, railroads, and other entities from failing, in an attempt to end the recession cycle. The Senate, still in Republican hands, generally took a more conservative approach, and the Democratic majority was by only a single seat, so little lasting action took place. Nevertheless, Hoover’s Republicans continued to take much of the blame over the next few years, and the 1932 elections resulted in a Democratic landslide across the board, with the Republicans losing over 100 seats as Roosevelt defeated Hoover by nearly as large a margin as Hoover had defeated Smith in 1928.
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