Elections in the United States: 1942 and 1946

The Events National elections for congressional seats held between presidential elections

Dates November 3, 1942, and November 2, 1946

The Seventy-eighth and Eightieth Congresses, elected in 1942 and 1946 respectively, reflected the vastly different political landscapes during and after World War II.

Members of the U.S. House of Representatives serve two-year terms, and senators serve six-year terms. During midterm elections, therefore, all seats in the U.S. House of Representatives are up for reelection, while only one-third of the seats in the U.S. Senate are up for reelection in any given election year (presidential or midterm). Every U.S. election cycle has unique characteristics, and the American political environment can change very quickly. Two electoral forces present in every midterm cycle are economic performance in the year leading to the midterm election and presidential popularity. Specific campaign issues usually matter less than economic performance and what voters think of the incumbent president, even though the president is not running for reelection.

Midterm elections are important indicators of the political environment. Some electoral cycles produce such radical political changes that they are referred to as “realigning” elections. Cycles that produce considerable political change, but on a smaller scale, are referred to as “calibrating” elections. Drastic political shifts rarely are caused by world events or campaign issues; rather, they reflect shifts in broader political ideology and partisan philosophies within the political parties.

The midterm election cycles during the 1940’s do not fit the profiles for realigning or calibrating elections; they are considered normal midterm elections despite the world events of the time. Despite the relative unity among Democrats and Republicans, however, the midterm elections of 1942 and 1946 did have unique and defining characteristics.

The 1942 Midterm Elections

The 1942 midterm elections were the first national elections after the U.S. commitment to World War II. The political environment was transitioning from the Great Depression to a global conflict, and the American economy was transitioning to support the total war effort on the home front. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Democratic Party had been in control of the government since 1933, when Roosevelt first took office. Roosevelt’s political popularity helped the Democratic Party during the midterm elections of his presidency. In 1942, the Democrats maintained their political majority in both the House and the Senate. Along with Roosevelt’s popularity, World War II likely also helped the Democrats. Polling data suggest that during national emergencies, such as wars, voters rarely change political leaders.

Although Roosevelt was still very popular in 1942, a slight political shift favored the Republican Party in the elections, but not enough to cost the Democrats their majorities in both houses of Congress. The Democrats maintained control of the U.S. House with the election of 222 candidates against the Republicans’ 209 candidates. In the Senate, the Democrats fell from 66 seats to 47, while the Republicans increased their representation from 28 to 38 seats.

Several factors likely influenced the Republicans’ gains in 1942. The war posed a period of political adjustment. The war effort on the home front brought on government sanctions and wartime controls on the domestic economy that included domestic rationing programs for various scarce resources and food items. Economic production was channeled into the wartime economy, causing shortages of many consumer goods. Labor-management disputes threatened wartime production schedules and the economy.

World War II was an influential context for the midterm elections of 1942, but in some different ways from what scholars and historians forecasted. As the electorate experienced the stresses associated with the war effort and various personal sacrifices, they remained united behind the Democratic Party. The issues expected to influence outcomes included the war effort, concerns about what would happen after the war, organized labor and how it would be allowed to operate, and international affairs. Voters were largely unified behind the president, however, and that general sentiment appeared to overwhelm concerns about specific issues.

Voter turnout on the whole decreased in 1942 from previous midterm elections. Of 60 million registered voters, 28 million voted in 1942. This turnout was down from 49.8 million voters in 1940, a presidential election year—and presidential elections tend to draw more voters—and also down from the 36.1 million voters in 1938. Low voter turnout was attributed to two specific factors. First, a large number of both men and women serving in the armed forces did not exercise their absentee voting privileges. Second, a large number of workers relocated for the war effort, and many did not register to vote in their new location or did not exercise an absentee vote.

1946 Elections and Republican Resurgence

The midterm elections of 1946 marked major changes in the American political environment. In the first postwar national elections, the political party that had managed the Great Depression and World War II suffered considerable political losses. The political environment was much different from that of previous cycles. A major factor was the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt while in office, in the spring of 1945, and the succession of Vice President Harry S. Truman to the presidency. The election was seen partly as a referendum on Truman as president, and his popularity was low. Another, more general, factor in the elections was that the transition from war to peace presented various challenges.

The Republican Party gained 55 seats in the U.S. House, for a total of 246; the Democrats lost 54, for a total of 188, thus losing their House majority. Republicans gained 13 seats in the Senate to hold 51, while Democrats lost 12 to hold 45, losing their majority there as well. The Republicans therefore held control of both houses of Congress for the first time since 1928. Losses by the Democratic Party were particularly heavy among liberal, progressive, northern Democrats; most southern Democrats held their seats.

The postwar transition was proving difficult, which hurt the Democratic Party, as the party in power. The switch from a wartime to a peace economy engendered an economic recession, but with high inflation; both inflicted considerable economic and financial burdens on an American population that already had suffered and sacrificed through the Great Depression and World War II. Labor tensions were high, with industry marked by protests for improved working conditions. Shortages of commodities continued to plague the economy, and many of the wartime controls remained in effect. After a prolonged economic depression, the war effort and its attendant sacrifices, and a postwar recession, voters were fatigued with the policies of the Democratic Party and voted many Democrats out of office.

The heavy Democratic losses in Congress prompted President Truman, a Democrat, to proactively surrender presidential powers that had been granted to Roosevelt during the war. Truman also made efforts to deregulate several private industries that had been heavily supervised by government agencies during the war. One of the first to be deregulated was the meatpacking industry.

The election of a Republican majority in both chambers of Congress signaled the decline of the New Deal era and its legislative agenda. The election of 1946 was the beginning of an era that saw dismantling of much of the New Deal’s political infrastructure. Truman and the Republican-controlled Congress had a tumultuous political relationship. Congress challenged Truman’s Fair Deal policy agenda, and Truman reciprocated with presidential vetoes to counter Republican legislative initiatives.

The Republican majority moved swiftly to implement postwar policies to rebuild the American economy and to supply aid to the allied nations most devastated by the war. Major legislative developments that came out of the Eightieth Congress included the Marshall Plan (postwar aid to Europe that began the U.S. policy of containment of communism); the National Security Act, which eventually created the Central Intelligence Agency; significant tax cuts; and the Taft-Hartley Act, which addressed labor-management tensions.

Social Changes

During the Great Depression, the New Deal altered many of the nation’s domestic political and social structures. The country tended to be isolationist in its global outlook; entry into World War II was a major step out of that paradigm. After World War II, the United States held a large amount of political capital and goodwill with other allied nations; Congress recognized this and capitalized on it by enacting postwar aid policies. The Eightieth Congress thus laid the foundation for the growth of the United States into a political, as well as military, superpower.

The midterm election cycles of 1942 and 1946 put in place lawmakers who created policy agendas that became permanent fixtures in American society. Among these was expansion of the federal income tax. The Seventy-eighth Congress, elected in 1942, changed the federal income tax structure, so that both personal and corporate tax receipts increased. Before World War II, only 7 percent of the American workforce paid income taxes; that rose to 64 percent by the war’s end.

The Eightieth Congress, elected in 1946, implemented many postwar measures designed to compensate for postwar strains on the economy. The Employment Act of 1946 created the Council of Economic Advisors, which assumed a role of overseeing the economy and advising the president. Labor laws were reorganized, largely more in favor of management, with the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 standing as a major revision of government policy. Congress also established the National Science Foundation, a not-for-profit organization that funds social and scientific academic research. The Atomic Energy Act of 1946 was designed to regulate domestic atomic energy and its uses. The Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946 (also known as the Congressional Reorganization Act) strengthened the legislative branch and limited the powers of the executive branch. The G.I. Bill funded educational expenses for returning soldiers, easing the transition of the economy back to peacetime and absorbing some of the shock to the labor market of servicemen returning to it.

Impact

The Congresses elected in the midterm elections of the 1940’s shaped major changes in U.S. society. In March, 1947, Congress approved the Twenty-second Amendment to the Constitution, limiting U.S. presidents to two terms in office, and sent it to the states for ratification, which was achieved in 1951. The National Security Act of 1947 established or consolidated several government departments related to national security, including the Central Intelligence Agency. Several notable political careers also were launched from the Eightieth Congress. Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy both were elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1946; they competed for the U.S. presidency in 1960. Also in 1946, Senator Joseph McCarthy was elected to the U.S. Senate. He became infamous during the 1950’s when he launched Senate committee investigations into communist influence within the United States.

Bibliography

Busch, Andrew E. Horses in Midstream: U.S. Midterm Elections and Their Consequences, 1894-1998. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1999. Thoughtful study of the conduct and impact of midterm elections from the time of Benjamin Harrison’s presidency through the late twentieth century.

Cantril, Hadley, and John Harding. “The 1942 Elections: A Case Study in Political Psychology.” Public Opinion Quarterly 7, no. 2 (1943): 222-241. Contemporary analysis of the results of the 1942 elections. Harding also continued his study of the 1942 elections in another article in the first 1944 issue of American Political Science Review.

Kernell, Samuel. “Presidential Popularity and Negative Voting: An Alternative Explanation of the Midterm Congressional Decline of the President’s Party.” The American Political Science Review 71, no. 1 (1977): 44-66. Fascinating exploration of the tendency of American voters to turn against the party of the incumbent president in midterm elections.

Mayhew, David R. “Wars and American Politics.” Perspectives on Politics 3, no. 3 (2005): 473-493. This essay on the interplay between election patterns and military conflicts is particularly relevant to the 1942 midterm elections.

Tufte, Edward R. “Determinants of the Outcomes of Midterm Congressional Elections.” American Political Science Review 69, no. 3 (1975): 812-826. Brief but insightful overview of voting patterns in midterm elections.