5 Brutal Midterm Losses for US Presidents

By Michael Gryboski, Mainline Church Editor Sunday, November 04, 2018

1890 - 97 Seats (93 House, 4 Senate)

An 1888 campaign ad for Republican Benjamin Harrison. | (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

Republican President Benjamin Harrison lost the popular vote in his victory over Democratic President Grover Cleveland by about 100,000 of 11.4 million votes cast.

For the first part of Harrison's term, the GOP controlled both houses of Congress; however, issues over economic depression and tariffs led them to lose big time.

"They lost 93 seats, which was more than half of the GOP conference (52 percent of their 179 seats) and a full 28 percent of the 332-seat chamber," explained Lara M. Brown, director of the Graduate School of Political Management at George Washington University, in a column for The Hill.

"They were able to retain majority control in the Senate, but they lost four seats in the 88-seat Senate. Interestingly, Populists picked up a fair number of the Republican seats in the House (8) and the Senate (2), suggesting once again ... that the American public was likely voting against the incumbent president and his partisan agenda, and not necessarily for the challengers' policy promises."