BTTT
Aside from 1946 and 1994, can you cite another instance in the past 80 years when the party of a Presidential incumbent lost control of both houses of Congress in a midterm? Of course it is historic. Denial just ain't a river in Egypt.
Oh, please. Unlike the examples you cite, the Republicans had a thin majority in the House with no "margin of error". They needed to run a flawless campaign and have favorite circumstances, neither of which they had. All the Dems had to do was run some candidates that "looked and talked" like Conservatives and rely on historical trends to win back the House. It is too early to tell if this election is a realignment. 2008 and 2010 will tell that.
Whatever the reason, the Reps lost and they lost not only in Congress but in governorships and state legislatures. No Dem incumbent was defeated. You can prattle on and on about how slim the majorities of the victories were, but the results remain the same. Bush won by a couple of hundred votes in FLA, but the results of that victory changed the face of the government. The Reps have had a thin margin in the House ever since they took over in 1994 after 40 straight years of Dem control.
We will have to see how long it will take the Reps to regain the House. It took the Dems 12 years to regain it. The Dems now have the power of incumbency and can set the agenda. We are deluding ourselves if we believe that we can retake the House in two to four years. We will have a hard time holding on to what we have. The Dems think they have found the secret, i.e., run as moderate Dems with conservative values in GOP leaning districts.
As far as the Senate goes, it has been a ping pong ball between the parties since 1980. The six seat loss is nothing unusual. Also the margin of victory in three of those six were razor thin. Swing of a couple thousand votes in one of those races and Republicans retain control.
Since 1987, the Dems have controlled the Senate 10 out of the 20 years, with biggest margin being 14 compared to the Reps 10 not counting Jeffords who switched to Independent but caucused with the Dems. In 2006, the Dems gained six and lost no incumbent. A lot depends on who is up for both parties in 2008 and 2010 and who is considered vulnerable. Again, rehashing the victory margins in the Senate is irrelevant. Those seats won't come open for another six years.
1938--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. Roosevelt was not rejected as Hoover had been—indeed he went on to win the next two presidential elections. But he never again dominated American domestic politics in the same way as before.
I guess it is all relevant. The 76th Congress [1939-41]had 69 Dem, 23 Rep and 4 other in the Senate and 262 Dem-169 Rep and 4 others in the House. That is quite an operating margin by anyone's standards. The 77th Congress [1941-43] had 66 Dems, 28 Reps, and 2 other. There were 267 Dems, 162 Reps, and 6 others in the House. The 78th Congress [1943-45] had 57 Dems, 38 Reps, 1 other and the House, 222 Dems, 209 Reps and 4 other. Finally the 79th Congress [1945-47] had 57 Dems, 38 Reps, and 1 other and the House had 243 Dems, 190 Reps, and 1 other. Roosevelt and the Dems may not have been as dominant as they were in the 75th Congress [1937-39] where they held the Senate with 75 Dems, 17 Reps and 4 others and in the House 333 Dems, 89 Reps, and 13 other, but compared to what. No party could expect to hold that kind of dominance.
Quoting Professor Busch again, "the conservative coalition proceeded to dominate Congress for the next twenty years, until the election of 1958."
The Conservative coaltion consisted of Dems and Reps, but during the period 1939 to 1959 [thru the 85th Congress] the Dems held the House and Senate for 16 of the 20 years. This translates into real power when it comes to running committees, approving budgets, and setting the agenda. The Dems were in control 80% of the time.
You fail to note that the 8 seat loss in the Senate cost the Republicans control. Without Reagan's campaigning the losses in the House probably would be been worse. With the loss of the Senate, Reagan was forced to throttle back on any planned domestic programs in his last two years.
I was dealing only with midterms and not Presidential years. What really makes 2006 historic is that this change occurred during a midterm election.
The bottom line is that what happened in 2006 is rare and unusual. We will see if it presages another Dem era similar or perhaps longer than what happened with the Reps in 1994. The Dems have a number of things going for them in terms of demographics. With one in every three Dems being black or Hispanic and the fact that the minority population is growing faster than the population at large, there could be a significant shift to the Dems spilling over into the Rep suburban districts. The House will be much harder to regain than the Senate.