City Club of Denver Speech

The nationalization of the midterm election was a main topic of a presentation of City Club of Denver on November 16. A Republican wave swept across the country and helped elect sixty-one new Republican congresspersons, including two from Colorado.

Republicans needed 39 seats to take the House of Representatives and ten in the Senate. They won six new Senate seats, but failed in Colorado.

Republican midterm gains were the largest won by a party since 1938 and they are at their highest number of congresspersons since 1948.

Democrats just took control of the House in 2006, winning 30 House seats. The last huge national wave was 1994 when Republicans won 54 seats, taking the House for the first time in 40 years.

In the west, Republicans won congressional seats in Arizona (2), Colorado (2), Idaho (1), Nevada (1), New Mexico (1) and Washington (1). Due to California’s political gerrymandering and substantial Democratic vote, no seat changed party control.