The Disintegration of the New Deal Coalition

In the normal pattern of off-year elections in the United States since World War II, the president's party can expect to lose three or four Senate seats, as many as two dozen in the House of Representatives, and perhaps a few governorships. The usual explanation for these defeats is that the president's party does not have the benefit of riding into office on his coattails, since there is no national standard bearer in these elections. And in lieu of a parliamentary system, voter discontent with the incumbent executive can be expressed through voting for the opposition party in the Congress. What happened on November 8, 1994, however, is remarkable and defies conventional wisdom about off-year elections.