2006 United States elections

Elections were held in the United States on November 7, 2006, in the middle of Republican President George W. Bush's second term against the backdrop of the war on terror. In a political revolution that ended more than a decade of Republican rule, the Democratic Party was swept into majorities of both chambers of Congress, governorships, and state legislatures. These elections were widely categorized as a Democratic wave. In the Senate, Democrats won a net gain of six seats to secure a narrow majority in that chamber. Democrats also gained 31 seats in the House of Representatives, and following the election, Nancy Pelosi became the first female speaker of the House. In the gubernatorial elections, Democrats achieved a net gain of six seats. Nationwide, Republicans failed to win any congressional or gubernatorial seat that was held by a Democrat before the election. This is the first midterm election since 1954 in which the Democrats ended unified Republican control of Congress in a midterm election under a Republican president. This would not happen again until 2026. This was also the first time since 1994 where a party did not lose a single incumbent in a gubernatorial or congressional election. The reasons for the Democratic Party's victory included the decline of the public image of George W. Bush, dissatisfaction of his administration's handling of both Hurricane Katrina and the War in Iraq, the beginning of the collapse of the United States housing bubble, Bush's legislative defeat regarding Social Security privatization and immigration reform, the Republican-controlled Congress's unprecedented and unpopular involvement in the Terri Schiavo case, and a series of scandals in 2006 involving Republican politicians.

Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0