ABSTRACT
The congressional midterm elections of 1994 and 2006 share many common elements. The most obvious and important point of commonality was the dramatic outcomes; in both cases long-standing majorities of the president’s party in Congress were overturned by the party out of power. And, in both cases, the outcome was largely an expression of dissatisfaction with the policies and performance of the president and Congress. Another noteworthy aspect of these two midterm elections is that parties, and party labels, were front and center in both of them. These were not typical congressional elections where what matters most is the candidates, especially incumbents, who almost always win over relatively weak challengers, and where state and local issues trump national issues in determining the results. In both of these elections, the parties, as national entities, helped to focus the attention of voters on the deficiencies of the president and his allies in Congress. There was a call for change in national direction, which the voters heard loudly and clearly, and the parties played a central role in shaping and articulating that call. In this chapter, we examine congressional elections in general, and the 1994 and 2006 elections in particular, with the goal of extending our description of the resurgence of partisanship
