United States elections, 1914
United States Senate elections, 1914
The 1914 midterms are forever known as the "War Election," due to the circumstances under which they were held, and as a result historians have looked back on them for over a century scratching their heads at how the Senate results diverged so sharply from the more typical midterm pattern that manifested itself in the House elections and particularly state gubernatorial and legislative contests (more on that below). Democrats defeated the Socialist turncoat Richard Pettigrew in Dakota and retook the Maryland Senate seat briefly held by Liberal appointee William Jackson but managed to lose three of their own seats, two of them in the Pacific Northwest thanks to the politics in those states polarizing on rural-urban lines, with Democratic machine bosses in the cities of Seattle, Portland and Spokane seeing their machines collapse in the face of Fusion voting, in which a bizarre coalition of pragmatic Socialists and progressive reform Liberals - a sentence unseen elsewhere in the country but perfectly befitting the unusual politics of the Northwest - managed to make the races a contest of competent urban reformers vs. the corrupt alliance of county and city bosses holding tight control over local patronage, and with that the "Fusion Liberals" Ole Hanson (Washington) and Walter Lafferty (Oregon) were elected, the former by defeating the populist incumbent, Seattle-machine product George Cotterill, and the latter taking advantage of incumbent George Chamberlain retiring due to controversy around his Mississippi roots and the temporary coalitional flux caused by the temperance debate in Oregon to narrowly eke out a win on the same ticket as fiercely "dry" Democrat Oswald West.
Such strange (and, as both Hanson and Lafferty would discover in their 1920 landslide defeats when they sought reelection, impossible to replicate) results did not repeat elsewhere. James Phelan, running on a platform of Sinophobia that would only accelerate in the back part of the decade as he became the central protagonist of the Yellow Peril Politics, was comfortably reelected. Democrats and Liberals held serve in their Mountain West and New England strongholds alike, respectively. Both Senate leaders were up for reelection and despite spirited challenges (the Senate made no attempt to tamper down partisanship in the way their House colleagues did) were reelected more narrowly than they had before. The only major flip of a seat was in Hughes' home state of New York, where two-term Senator and on-again-off-again Hearst ally George B. McClellan, Jr. retired in order to serve on the front full time (having been absent from the Senate since February of 1914) and, according to some, to prepare a run for the Presidency in 1916 without the distraction of incumbent office. In his place Democrats nominated Tammany machine figure William Sheehan, who dominated in Irish wards but failed to make much impact upstate, and he was narrowly defeated by outgoing Lieutenant Governor James W. Wadsworth, husband of the daughter of the late President John Hay and thus married into Liberal royalty.
CA: James D. Phelan (D) Re-Elected
CO: James Bradley Orman (D) Retired; John Andrew Martin (D) ELECTED
CT: Henry Roberts (L) Re-Elected
DK: Richard Pettigrew (S) DEFEATED; John Burke (D) ELECTED
D+1
ID: Moses Alexander (D) Re-Elected
IL: Richard Yates Jr. (L) Re-Elected
IL (special): Shelby Moore Cullom died in office; Joseph Medill McCormick (L) Re-Elected
[1]
IN: John W. Kern (D) Re-Elected
IA: Claude R. Porter (D) Re-Elected
KS: George H. Hodges (D) Re-Elected
MD: Isidor Rayner (D) died in office; William Jackson (L) Appointed and DEFEATED; Blair Lee (D) ELECTED
D+2
MO: James Tilghman Lloyd (D) Re-Elected
MT: Joseph Toole (D) Retired; Henry L. Myers (D) ELECTED
NV: Francis Newlands (D) Re-Elected
NH: Winston Churchill (L) Re-Elected
NY: George McClellan Jr. (D) Retired; James W. Wadsworth (L) ELECTED
L+1
OH: Newton Baker (D) Re-Elected
OR: George Earle Chamberlain (D) Retired; Walter Lafferty (Liberal/Fusion) ELECTED
L+2
PA: Boies Penrose (L) Re-Elected
VT: George H. Prouty (L) Re-Elected, in Absentia
WA: George F. Cotterill (D) DEFEATED; Ole Hanson (Liberal/Fusion) ELECTED
L+3
WI: Robert La Follette (L) Re-Elected
United States House of Representatives elections, 1914
The races were completely different in the House, where depending on what state one lived in the elections were either aggressively fought or mutually uncontested, with both Speaker Mann and Minority Leader Clark having encouraged state parties not to disrupt the "War Congress" with feisty partisanship. In some states, such as Ohio or Michigan, this was adhered to at the Congressional level; in New York, however, it was not, and half of the twelve seats lost by Liberals came from that state alone, while also shedding seats in Illinois and traditional strongholds like Pennsylvania and Massachusetts where Democrats held the creaky old Liberal machines there in total contempt. Where Democrats found a great deal of success, however, was in coming after Socialists, especially in the West, flipping seats in Washington, Nevada, Colorado and Montana and nearly nabbing one in Idaho, too. While Democrats lost some seats here and there across the country, as was bound to happen (particularly on the West Coast, which was rapidly diverging from the Mining Belt and Prairie States in terms of its political culture), they ended with a net gain of 17 seats, ending up two seats shy of retaking the House with an outright majority - meaning they would be reliant on some kind of unique confidence-and-supply agreement, which Victor Berger and Ed Boyce, the co-leaders of the Socialists, agreed to provide.
[2]
United States State elections, 1914
An entirely third election was occurring at the state level, where Democrats did not backslide or make modest gains but rather delivered something approximating the 1902 landslide. The Governorships of New York (James Gerard), Ohio (James M. Cox), Michigan (Woodbridge Ferris, making a comeback after his Senate defeat in 1910), Wisconsin (John Karel), Oregon (Oswald West) and most shockingly Massachusetts, which elected David Walsh as its first Democratic Governor in thirty years. At the legislative level things went even worse - Democrats achieved supermajorities in the New York Senate and California Assembly (a recompense for not being able to defeat Governor Hiram Johnson in his reelection bid), padded existing majorities in states like Indiana, Minnesota and Colorado, and flipped the entire Michigan legislature, the Ohio Senate, and the Illinois House while dramatically narrowing their deficits in Pennsylvania while coming close to defeating the Liberal nominee Gifford Pinchot, who won thanks to a fervently progressive platform that made major efforts in reaching out to Democrats. While the Senate and House results went in two different directions, the state elections of 1914 were nothing short of a decisive drubbing up and down the ballot in favor of Democrats surging back in the post-Hearst years.
64th United States Congress
Senate: 33D-31L/FL
[3]
President of the Senate: Herbert Hadley (L-MO)
Senate President pro tempore: George Turner (D-WA)
Chairman of Senate Liberal Conference: Boies Penrose (L-PA)
Chairman of Senate Democratic Conference: John Kern (D-IN)
California
1. John D. Works (L) (1911)
3. James D. Phelan (D) (1903)
Colorado
2. John Shafroth (D) (1913)
3. John Andrew Martin (D) (1915)
Connecticut
1. George P. McLean (L) (1911)
3. Henry Roberts (L) (1911)
Dakota
2. Fountain Thompson (D) (1901)
3. John Burke (D) (1915)
Delaware
1. J. Edward Addicks (L) (1905)
2. Henry A. du Pont (L) (1907)
Idaho
2. Fred Dubois (D) (1907)
3. Moses Alexander (D) (1905)
Illinois
2. Joseph Medill McCormick (L) (1914)
3. Richard Yates Jr. (L) (1909)
Indiana
1. Benjamin Shively (D) (1905)
3. John W. Kern (D) (1903)
Iowa
2. William D. Jamieson (D) (1913)
3. Claude R. Porter (D) (1909)
Kansas
2. Dudley Doolittle (D) (1913)
3. George H. Hodges (D) (1909)
Maine
1. Frederick Hale (L) (1911)
2. Frank Guernsey (L) (1911)
Maryland
1. John W. Smith (D) (1908)
3. Blair Lee (D) (1913)
Massachusetts
1. Henry Cabot Lodge (L) (1893)
2. John Weeks (L) (1913)
Michigan
1. Charles E. Townsend (L) (1911)
2. William Alden Smith (L) (1907)
Minnesota
1. John Lind (D) (1911)
2. Knute Nelson (D) (1901)
Missouri
1. James A. Reed (D) (1905)
3. James T. Lloyd (D) (1903)
Montana
2. Thomas Walsh (D) (1913)
3. Henry L. Myers (D) (1915)
Nebraska
1. Richard Lee Metcalfe (D) (1905)
2. Gilbert Hitchcock (D) (1913)
Nevada
1. Denver Sylvester Dickerson (1911)
3. Francis Newlands (D) (1903)
New Hampshire
2. William Chandler (L) (1889)
3. Winston Churchill (L) (1909)
New Jersey
1. Joseph Sherman Frelinghuysen (L) (1911)
2. Mahlon Pitney (L) (1913)
New Mexico
1. Bernard Rodey (D) (1911)
2. Octaviano Larrazola (D) (1901)
New York
1. Bainbridge Colby (L) (1911)
3. James Wolcott Wadsworth Jr. (L) (1915)
[4]
Ohio
1. Frank Monnett (L) (1911)
3. Newton Baker (D) (1909)
Oregon
2. Jonathan Bourne (L) (1907)
3. Walter Lafferty (FL) (1915)
Pennsylvania
1. Philander Knox (L) (1905)
3. Boies Penrose (L) (1897)
Rhode Island
1. William Sprague (L) (1863)
2. George Wetmore (L) (1895)
Vermont
1. Carroll S. Page (L) (1908)
3. George H. Prouty (L) (1909) (sworn in
in absentia)
Washington
2. George Turner (D) (1889)
3. Ole Hanson (FL) (1915)
[5]
West Virginia
1. Thomas S. Riley (D) (1905)
2. John J. Davis (D) (1893)
Wisconsin
1. Francis McGovern (L) (1911)
3. Robert La Follette (L) (1903)
Wyoming
1. John Eugene Osborne (D) (1905)
2. Frank Houx (D) (1913)
House: 216D-212L-6S-1Pro (+17D)
Speaker of the House: Champ Clark (D-MO)
House Majority Leader: Marion De Vries (D-CA)
House Majority Whip: John J. Fitzgerald (D-NY)
House Democratic Caucus Chair: Thomas Gallagher (D-IL)
House Minority Leader: James Mann (L-IL)
House Minority Whip: Thomas S. Butler (L-PA)
House Liberal Caucus Chair: William Greene (L-MA)
Socialist House Leader: Victor Berger (S-WI)
Socialist House Whip: Ed Boyce (S-ID)
[1] Some of you may recall the chaotic sequence of events back in early 1914 leading to J.M. McCormick's appointment and the emerging split in the Illinois Liberal Party it caused, which will have very big knock-on effects following the war.
[2] More on this in a moment...
[3] Hat tip to
@Curtain Jerker for holding me to what I've already written before and pointing out that the Liberals, in order to avoid being locked out of the Senate for like thirty straight years or something insane like that, need to actually pick up more seats in the mid-1910s than I had initially planned. That's how we wind up with WA and NY being flips, rather than just OR, which was the original plan. This wound up working out well, though, because it just adds to the "huh?" aspect of 1914, a midterm that will confound political historians for decades to come.
[4] Like the most old-money New England WASP name of all time, good lord. Also, in addition to being married into the Hay family, his daughter was Stu Symington's wife. Quite the political family, just learned this today!
[5] At this stage in his career Ole Hanson was actually pretty progressive - he was a Bull Mooser and was elected as Mayor of Seattle OTL in 1918 by running to his fellow progressive opponent's
left. I promise that the long write ups that aren't just the results will cover how in the hell "Fusion Liberals" can be a thing, so hang tight - but like I said, mid-1910s politics is weird in the US, and will only get weirder.