1890 United States House of Representatives elections

The 1890 United States House of Representatives elections were held for the most part on November 4, 1890, with five states holding theirs early in between June and October. They occurred in the middle of President Benjamin Harrison's term. Elections were held for 332 seats of the United States House of Representatives, representing 44 states, to serve in the 52nd United States Congress. Special elections were also held throughout the year.

1890 United States House of Representatives elections

← 1888 June 3, 1890 – November 4, 1890 1892 →
All 332 seats in the United States House of Representatives 167 seats needed for a majority
Majority party Minority party Third party   Leader Charles Frederick Crisp Thomas Brackett Reed Jerry Simpson Party Democratic Republican Populist Leader's seat Georgia 3rd Maine 1st Kansas 7th Last election 152 seats 179 seats 0 seats Seats won 238[1][a] 86[1][a] 8[1][a] Seat change 86 93 8 Popular vote 4,945,756 4,173,605 182,797 Percentage 50.71% 42.80% 1.87% Swing 2.03% 4.56% New
Results:      Democratic gain      Republican gain      Democratic hold      Republican hold      Populist gain
Speaker before election Thomas Reed Republican Elected Speaker Charles Crisp Democratic

A stagnant economy which became worse after the Panic of 1890, combined with a lack of support for then-Representative William McKinley's (defeated in the election) steep tariff act, which favored large industries at the expense of consumers, led to a sharp defeat for Harrison's Republican Party, giving a large majority to the Democratic Party and presaging Harrison's defeat in the 1892 United States presidential election. The Republican-controlled Congress was highly criticized for its lavish spending, and it earned the unflattering nickname of The Billion Dollar Congress. Democrats promised to cut the outlandish budget.

Furthermore, aggressive Republican promotion of controversial English-only education laws enacted by Wisconsin and Illinois in 1889, accompanied by a surge in nativist and anti-Catholic sentiment within the state parties, had greatly hollowed out the party's support base in these former strongholds. A rare multi-confessional alliance of mainly German clergy rallied their flocks in defense of language and faith to the Democratic Party, which tore through incumbent Republican majorities in both states, capturing a total of 11 formerly Republican seats between them alone.^[2] Bitterly divisive struggles over temperance laws had also been alienating immigrants from the increasingly prohibitionist Republican Party across the Midwest more broadly. Dramatic losses in the previous year's gubernatorial elections in Iowa and Ohio (which would lose another 14 Republican congressional seats between them during this election) were due in no small part to wet immigrant communities, especially Germans, expressing their resentment toward Republican efforts to ban or otherwise curtail alcohol consumption by throwing their support behind the Democratic candidates.^[3]

This election also saw the Populist Party, a coalition of farmers and laborers who wanted to overhaul the nation's financial system, make a small mark on Congress.