5 Brutal Midterm Losses for US Presidents
1938 - 77 Seats (71 House, 6 Senate)
While Democratic President Franklin Delano Roosevelt remained popular among the people, a recession within the Great Depression, his failed effort to unseat several conservative Democrats, and his attempt to pack the United States Supreme Court harmed his Party's midterm chances.
Republicans won 71 seats in the House of Representatives and 6 seats in the Senate, reversing a years-long electoral trend of losing seats in Congress.
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Andrew E. Busch, professor of Government at Claremont McKenna College, explained in a 2006 piece that these losses greatly harmed FDR's New Deal legislative agenda.
"Once the dust had settled, the Senate was about evenly divided between pro- and anti-New Deal forces, and the 'conservative coalition' of Republicans and conservative Democrats was also solidified in the House, and started any given issue within range of victory," wrote Busch.
"If it makes sense to consider the 1930 midterm as the leading edge of the New Deal policy era, the midterm elections of 1938 clearly served as the endpoint of that era."
