Bloodless Coup

Stability and Instability in the 435 Seat US House

I just noticed something. It's often discussed that elections for Congress have gotten less competitive over the years. But it's rarely discussed just how competitive they actually were in days of yore. Since the US House went to 435 seats (with the elections of 1912) there have been 9 elections when one party gained or lost at least 50 seats. In the last 60 years that has only happened once (1994). But from the 1914-1948 elections that happened 8 times in those 18 cycles. So there were 50+ seat swings going on basically half the time in that era. The high point came when the Republicans lost 100 seats in 1932. Interestingly, they had already lost 50 seats one cycle earlier (1930). Actually there have been 3 times in this era when there were 50+ seat swings in back to back elections: 1920 & 1922 (Republican gains followed by bigger Democratic gains), 1930 & 1932 (Democratic gains followed by bigger Democratic gains) and 1946 & 1948 (Republican gains followed by bigger Democratic gains).