The 1990 United States elections were held on November 6 and elected the members of the

102nd United States Congress The 102nd United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, composed of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, DC from January 3, 1991 ...

. The elections occurred in the middle of

Republican Republican can refer to: Political ideology * An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law. ** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...

President George H. W. Bush's term and during the

Gulf War The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a Coalition of the Gulf War, 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Ba'athist Iraq, ...

. The

Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to: *Democratic Party (United States) Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to: Active parties Africa *Botswana Democratic Party *Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea *Gabonese Democratic Party *Demo ...

easily retained control of

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...

The

built on its majorities in both chambers of Congress. They picked up a net of one seat in the Senate. Democrats won the nationwide popular vote for the

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often c ...

by a margin of 7.8 point percentage points, picking up a net of seven seats. In the gubernatorial elections, both parties lost a net of one seat to third parties. The Democratic performance was underwhelming, but a

wave In physics, mathematics, and related fields, a wave is a propagating dynamic disturbance (change from equilibrium) of one or more quantities. Waves can be periodic, in which case those quantities oscillate repeatedly about an equilibrium (re ...

wasn't needed due to the party already having solid control of Congress.

Federal elections

Senate elections

The 1990 Senate elections featured the smallest number of seats changing parties in US history since the passage of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913 with only one seat changing parties. That election featured Democrat Paul Wellstone defeating incumbent Republican

Rudy Boschwitz Rudolph Ely Boschwitz (born November 7, 1930) is an American politician and businessman who served as a United States senator from Minnesota from 1978 until 1991. Boschwitz is a member of the Republican Party. He was born in Berlin to a Jewish ...

in Minnesota.

House of Representatives elections

Democrats won the nationwide popular vote for the

by a margin of 7.8 percentage points, picking up a net of seven seats.

State elections

Heading into the elections, there were 20 seats held by Democrats and 16 held by Republicans. By the end of the elections, 19 seats would be held by a Democrat, 15 would be held by a Republican, and two would be held by other parties. Notably in these elections, there were two people elected from a third party: a former Alaskan governor and Secretary of the Interior, Joseph Hickel, was elected governor as a part of the Alaskan Independence Party, and former U.S. Senator Lowell Weicker of Connecticut won on A Connecticut Party's ticket. In addition to Weicker, two other U.S. senators were elected governors that year: Republican Pete Wilson of California and Democrat Lawton Chiles of Florida. The 1990 cycle saw six incumbent governors defeated. These were Republicans Mike Hayden of Kansas, Kay Orr of Nebraska, Bob Martinez of Florida and Edward DiPrete of Rhode Island, as well as Democrats James Blanchard of Michigan and Rudy Perpich of Minnesota.

References

1990 File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of humanity on Earth, astrophysicist ...

United States midterm elections November 1990 events in the United States {{US-election-stub