ABSTRACT
The context and character of the 2012 congressional elections contrast radically with the situation four years earlier. In many respects, they seem a photographic negative of the 2008 contests and their outcomes. The Democratic Party in 2006 captured both houses of Congress for the first time since 1992; its ranks swelled in 2008, matching Barack Obama’s victory at the top of the ticket. Meanwhile, opinion surveys raised the prospect of a more progressive-minded electorate, propelled by the expected infusion of younger people and racial minorities within the civic culture (Pew Research Center 2007).
