1910 Congressional Elections
Senate
Democratic: 43 (-6)
Republican: 34 (+1)
Progressive: 19 (+5)
House
Republican: 148 (+33)
Democratic: 136 (-46)
Progressive: 101 (+9)
Socialist: 6 (+3)
Independent: 2 (+1)
Senate Leadership
Senate President James 'Champ' Clark (D-MO)
President pro tempore Augustus O. Bacon (D-GA)
Caucus Chairman Joseph W. Bailey (D-TX)
Conference Chairman Shelby M. Cullom (R-IL)
Conference Chairman Robert La Follette (P-WI)
House of Representatives Leadership
Speaker Thomas S. Butler (R-PA)
Minority Leader William Sulzer (D-NY)
Minority Leader Wesley L. Jones (P-CA)
Minority Leader John C. Chase (S-NY)
A staple takeaway from the 1910 congressional and gubernatorial elections was unquestioning frustration with President Hearst. Even if a majority of the population possibly concurred with the need for governmental reform and new methods to bring about transparency and direct democracy, compounding elements presented to the public over the course of the prior two years revealed the two-face essence of a demagogue presidency. Policy was not a central component to these elections. These midterm contests represented a national referendum on President Hearst and the direction of the country.
Disunified Democrats succumbed to swiftly recovering Republicans and powerfully perceptive Progressives. The opposition skillfully took advantage of national division and managed to effortlessly trounce the party of the president. The 61st House, especially, with its noted Democratic leadership, was eyed as a chief obstacle to uncovering the truth of the Manhattan Scandal. Speaker Sulzer needed to be removed from his position to ensure an investigation could be created, and so Democrats naturally suffered across-the-board. In a dramatic flip to the 1908 results, nearly every freshman Democrat elected that year (mostly Northern and Midwestern-based) lost to challengers from the Republican Party. Sulzer squandered his tenuous majority coalition and forfeited the speakership back to Butler for the 62nd Congress, as Progressive representatives overwhelmingly voted for the more moderate Republican.
Republican senatorial incumbents fared far better than their counterparts two years earlier. For every Republican-held seat that swapped to the Progressive Party, the Republicans gained a seat challenging an incumbent Democrat, therefore concluding in a +1 end-result. A larger-than-anticipated number of Democratic senators found themselves lost in the anti-Hearst tide, including the once-popular Attorney General George Gray and Confederate Brigadier General Francis Cockrell (D-MO). Gray's successor was none other than septuagenarian Henry A. du Pont, the exiled Delawarean businessman and former arch-conservative senator. Du Pont effectively purchased his way to the GOP nomination, and the lack of a genuine Progressive challenger gave Du Pont the victory on a silver platter. In 1906, Du Pont could only manage 30% of the state vote. In 1910, through tying Gray together with a vast Tammany conspiracy by the Democratic Party to corrupt the voting process, he won 52%.
Senator Franklin P. Flint, the sitting Republican incumbent from California, opted to retire in 1911 instead of running for a second complete term. In this period, following Knox's conscious decision to back off campaigning along the West Coast, the Californian Republican Party operated as a shell of its former self. Most state offices were run by either Progressives or Democrats by 1910, leaving the panicked Senator Flint and bankrupt Governor James Gillett as the last of a generation of GOP officeholders in the Golden State. With Democrats struggling to move past the emerging presidential controversy, Progressives sailed to the open seats. John D. Works (P-CA), a former California justice and Los Angeles City Councilman, handily won the open Senate seat. For the gubernatorial race, Roosevelt-ally Hiram Johnson took the crown in a landslide.
In Nevada, Senator George S. Nixon (R-NV) was overwhelmingly favored to win re-election. As Nixon did not identify or associate himself with the Old Guard of the Republican Party, his record remained relatively spotless. He also proved his moderate nature by voting in favor of the Hammond Bill despite party-wide opposition. As such, his youthful and rather inexperienced Democratic challenger, Key Pittman, did not possess much of a chance to topple the incumbent. One facet of this race that raised some eyebrows had been the stellar candidacy of Socialist Jud Harris for Nixon's seat. Harris gained a significant audience throughout the Silver State who relished in the activist's demand for a minimum working wage and an eight-hour day. More Nevadans voted Socialist in 1910 than in any year prior, and although Harris was ultimately unsuccessful in that race, he managed to capture an unprecedented 21% of the vote (compared with Pittman's 30% and Nixon's 49%) and likely boosted fellow union activist and labor attorney George Conrad (S-NV) in narrowly overtaking Representative George A. Bartlett (D-NV) for the state's lone, at-large House seat.
During what would have been an otherwise uneventful election, Senator Andrew L. Harris (R-OH) thrust the political landscape of his state into an uproar with an announcement that he would retire at the end of his term. Harris was thought to be a no-brainer for re-election, encompassing a moderate streak in the GOP with enough support from progressives to guarantee an additional term. Now, with the race open for all entrants, the parties scrambled to draft serious contenders suited for the job. The Ohio Republican Party, privately thrilled with Harris' stepping down, promoted conservative, McKinley-endorsed Assemblyman Harry M. Daugherty. Democrats chose Governor Judson Harmon's (D-OH) second-in-command, anti-corruption advocate Atlee Pomerene. Lastly, the Progressives designated President Roosevelt's Interior Secretary, James R. Garfield. This three-way race proved incredibly vitriolic, and it ended in an exceptionally slim win for the Progressive nominee. State officials recounted the votes twice, yet the result held. Garfield won by 1,013 votes over Daugherty.
Regarding gubernatorial elections, the two contests most frequently cited by historians as politically significant were those in Ohio and New Jersey. In the former state, sitting Governor Harmon fought to retain his seat in power against stark odds courtesy of the national environment. Harmon was no progressive, and in fact actively rallied against Garfield's senatorial run as a "vanity mission" aimed at crumbling Wall Street for personal benefit. It would be foolish to assume that the state Democrats did not stand by the incumbent governor for lack of timely political instincts, however. Governor Harmon locked up the Democratic nomination (thereby eliminating the prospect of a unified Progressive-Democratic ticket), and went on to lose to the dignified, well-spoken former Lieutenant Governor Warren G. Harding (R-OH). Simultaneously, in one of the only net gains for the Democratic Party in 1910, social conservative Princeton University President Thomas Woodrow Wilson defeated the opposing candidates to secure the uninterrupted state-wide control of New Jersey by the Democratic Party. Wilson and Harding were each thought of as potential candidates for national office, and, along with Hiram Johnson in California, this freshmen class would play an essential role in future events.
Senators Elected in 1910 (Class 1)
*John H. Bankhead (D-AL): Democratic Hold, 90%
Henry F. Ashurst (D-AZ): Democratic Hold, 55%
John D. Works (P-CA): Progressive Gain, 57%
George P. McLean (R-CT): Republican Hold, 66%
Henry A. du Pont (R-DE): Republican Gain, 52%
James Taliaferro (D-FL): Democratic Hold, 83%
James A. Hemenway (R-IN): Republican Hold, 51%
*John R. Thornton (D-LA): Democratic Hold, Unopposed
Eugene Hale (R-ME): Republican Hold, 74%
Charles J. Bonaparte (P-MD): Progressive Hold, 46%
Henry Cabot Lodge (R-MA): Republican Hold, 73%
Roy O. Woodruff (P-MI): Progressive Gain, 44%
Moses E. Clapp (R-MN): Republican Hold, 49%
James K. Vardaman (D-MS): Democratic Hold, Unopposed
*LeRoy Percy (D-MS): Democratic Hold, Unopposed
John C. McKinley (R-MO): Republican Gain, 50%
Charles N. Pray (R-MT): Republican Gain, 48%
Chester H. Aldrich (P-NE): Progressive Gain, 49%
George S. Nixon (R-NV): Republican Hold, 49%
Mahlon R. Pitney (P-NJ): Progressive Gain, 48%
Thomas B. Caltron (R-NM): Republican Gain, 50%
George B. McClellan, Jr. (D-NY): Democratic Hold, 46%
Porter J. McCumber (R-ND): Republican Hold, 46%
James R. Garfield (P-OH): Progressive Gain, 43%
Philander C. Knox (R-PA): Republican Hold, 59%
Henry F. Lippitt (R-RI): Republican Hold, 64%
Luke Lea (D-TN): Democratic Hold, 52%
Charles Allen Culberson (D-TX): Democratic Hold, 80%
George Sutherland (R-UT): Republican Hold, 70%
Carroll S. Page (R-VT): Republican Hold, 68%
John W. Daniel (D-VA): Democratic Hold, Unopposed
Miles Poindexter (P-WA): Progressive Gain, 53%
Nathan B. Scott (R-WV): Republican Gain, 53%
*Dave Elkins (R-WV): Republican Hold, 50%
Robert M. La Follette (P-WI): Progressive Hold, 59%
Clarence D. Clark (R-WY): Republican Hold, 55%
*Special Election