15 Facts About New Democrats

1. In November 2018, the New Democrats gained 40 seats in the House of Representatives.

2. The New Democrats lost control of seven state Senate legislatures and 13 state Houses.

3. The New Democrats lost a net of six state governorships and a net 680 seats in state legislatures.

4. The New Democrats went from controlling a minority of governorships to a majority.

5. The New Democrats had spent twelve successive years as the minority party in the House before the 2006 mid-term elections.

6. In 2005, the New Democrats retained their governorships in Virginia and New Jersey, electing Tim Kaine and Jon Corzine, respectively.

7. The New Democrats were split over entering Iraq in 2003 and increasingly expressed concerns about both the justification and progress of the War on Terrorism as well as the domestic effects, including threats to civil rights and civil liberties from the Patriot Act.

8. The New Democrats held together while the Republican Party bitterly split between the Roosevelt-oriented progressives and the Taft-oriented conservatives.

9. The New Democrats made the high McKinley Tariff of 1890 a major campaign issue, and seized control of Congress in the 1890 elections.

10. In 1860, the New Democrats were unable to stop the election of Republican Abraham Lincoln, even as they feared his election would lead to civil war.

11. The New Democrats elected only two Presidents to four terms of office for twenty-two years, namely Grover Cleveland and Woodrow Wilson (in 1912 and 1916).

12. The New Democrats held on to their majority in the Senate, though that majority was dramatically reduced.

13. The New Democrats increased their majority in the Senate and the House.

14. The New Democrats lost decisively the presidential elections of 1920, 1924, and 1928.

15. The first wave New Democrats sought the votes of White working-class Reagan Democrats.