Democrats rushing to defeat in the House of Representatives

The Democrats seem destined to squander their overwhelming control of the House of Representatives as they stumble from disaster to disaster--alienating those who had voted for them in record numbers just two years ago. In the 2018 midterm elections, the Democrats, led by Nancy Pelosi, won control of the House--winning 235 seats to the Republicans 199. The Democrats gained a net total of 41 seats from the total number of seats they had won in the 2016 elections. The 41-seat gain was the Democrats' largest gain of House seats since the post-Watergate 1974 elections, when they picked up 49 seats. The Democrats won the popular vote by a margin of 8.6% over the Republicans--60,572,245 to 50,861,970--the largest margin on record for a party that previously held a minority in the House. Turnout was the highest for a midterm election in more than a century, with 50.3% of the electorate casting ballots.