Выборы в США 2006: Демократическая волна

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The 2006 United States elections were held on Tuesday, November 7, 2006, in the middle of Republican President George W. Bush's second term. In a political revolution that broke twelve years of Republican rule, the Democratic Party was swept into majorities in Congress, the governorships, and state legislatures across the country. This marked the first and only time either party achieved such a feat since the 1994 elections. These elections were widely categorized as a Democratic wave. In the Senate, Democrats won a net gain of six seats to secure a narrow majority in that chamber. Democrats also gained 31 seats in the House of Representatives, and following the election, Nancy Pelosi became the first female Speaker of the House. In the gubernatorial elections, Democrats achieved a net gain of six seats. Nationwide, Republicans failed to win any congressional or gubernatorial seat that was held by a Democrat before the election. This was also the first time since 1994 where a party did not lose a single incumbent in a gubernatorial or congressional election. Reasons for the Democratic Party's victory included the decline of the public image of George W. Bush, dissatisfaction of his administration's handling of both Hurricane Katrina and the War in Iraq, the beginning of the collapse of the United States housing bubble, Bush's legislative defeat regarding Social Security Privatization and immigration reform, the Republican controlled Congress's unprecedented and unpopular involvement in the Terri Schiavo case, and a series of scandals in 2006 involving Republican politicians.

In March 2003, President George W. Bush ordered an invasion of Iraq, a state which the Bush administration claimed was linked to the September 11 attacks in 2001, and claimed was producing weapons of mass destruction. In May, just two months after the initial invasion, Bush announced the end of major combat operations in Iraq. In the following months, insurgents began resisting the American occupation. Additionally, religious tensions between majority Shiite and minority Sunni Muslims, tensions which had been suppressed under the grip of Saddam's regime, resulted in violence. By the end of 2003, despite the war's initial popularity, the post war occupation was losing support from the American public. A November 2003 Gallup poll showed that Bush's job approval rating had fallen to 50% from a high of 71% at the outset of the war. The next year, Bush won reelection over Democratic nominee Senator John Kerry with less than 51% of the popular vote and 286 electoral votes (only 16 votes ahead of the 270 votes needed), marking the smallest winning margin for an incumbent president since Woodrow Wilson in the 1916 election. However, it was the first time since 1988 that a winner garnered a popular majority. Terrorism and the war in Iraq dominated the election, with domestic issues taking a secondary role. Bush began his second term with a continuation of the occupation and a push to overhaul Social Security with his privatization plan. Both policies proved unpopular, and violence in Iraq continued to increase. Compounding the unpopularity of the war was the fact that no weapons of mass destruction were found. August 2005 was the last time any major public opinion poll recorded majority approval of Bush's job. Negative perceptions of Bush, following the slow governmental response to Hurricane Katrina, further weighed on his popularity. Simultaneously, the popularity of the Republican controlled 109th Congress was also on the decline. A series of notable congressional scandals also took place in Washington, D. C., including the ongoing Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal, as well as the Mark Foley scandal and the Cunningham scandal, both in October 2006. Throughout 2006, sectarian violence persisted in Baghdad and other areas of Iraq; many claimed that the conflict was evolving into a civil war. President Bush's job approval rarely rose above 40%. Perceptions of Congress and Republicans in general, remained highly negative. Additionally, the Congress had a smaller than average list of major accomplishments (considering that the Party in charge of both the House and Senate also had control of the White House) and was not in session for a larger than average number of days. This allowed Democrats and others to characterize it as a "Do Nothing" Congress and blame the Republican leadership for the lack of progress.

The Democratic Party won a majority of the state governorships and the U. S. House and Senate seats, each for the first time since 1994, an election year commonly known as the "Republican Revolution." For the first time since the creation of the Republican Party in 1854, no Republican captured any House, Senate, or gubernatorial seat previously held by a Democrat. Democrats took a 233–202 advantage in the House of Representatives, and achieved a 49–49 tie in the United States Senate. The Senate figure is sometimes quoted in the media as 51–49, which includes two members who ran as independent candidates: Bernie Sanders and Joe Lieberman, who promised to caucus with the Democrats. The final Senate result was decided when Democrat Jim Webb was declared the winner in Virginia against incumbent George Allen, as reported by the Associated Press. On November 9, 2006, Allen and fellow Republican incumbent Sen. Conrad Burns of Montana both conceded defeat, ceding effective control of the Senate to the Democrats. The election made Nancy Pelosi (D California) the first ever female, first ever Italian American, and first ever Californian Speaker of the House and Harry Reid (D Nevada) the first Mormon Senate Majority Leader. Keith Ellison (D Minnesota) became the first Muslim ever elected to the U. S. Congress and Mazie Hirono (D Hawaii) and Hank Johnson (D Georgia) became the first Buddhists in a United States governing body. Although seven states banned recognition of same sex marriage, Arizona became the first state to reject such a ballot initiative. South Dakota rejected a ban on abortion under almost any circumstances, intended to overturn federal constitutional abortion rights nationwide by setting up a strong test case that proponents hoped would lead to the overruling of Roe v. Wade. This result would eventually happen in 2022, with a Mississippi state law that imposed a 15 week ban on abortion leading to the case Dobbs v. Jackson, which then led to Roe's overturning. Some of the Republican House and Senate seats lost by the Republicans belonged to members of the Republican Revolution of 1994. Senators Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and Mike DeWine of Ohio, and Representatives Charlie Bass of New Hampshire, John Hostettler of Indiana, Gil Gutknecht of Minnesota, and J. D. Hayworth of Arizona all won previously Democratic seats in 1994 elections and were defeated in 2006. Representative Sue Kelly of New York, also first elected in 1994, was defeated as well. The Democrats also won back the Kansas 2nd and Ohio 18th, both of which they had lost in 1994. In the 2006 elections, the Democratic Party also claimed a majority of state governorships, gaining control of Republican held governorships in New York, Massachusetts, Colorado, Arkansas, Maryland, and Ohio, giving the party a 28–22 advantage in governorships. Various scandals, including the Mark Foley congressional page scandal, the Jack Abramoff scandal, and various allegations of marital infidelity and abuse, doomed certain candidates, especially incumbents in PA 10 and NY 20, which hosted one of the most negative campaigns in the country. Virginia Senator George Allen, a potential Republican 2008 Presidential candidate, saw his chances for reelection disappear when he was caught on video using a racial slur to describe a young Indian American who worked for his opponent's campaign.

Third parties received largely mixed results in the 2006 elections. In the Maine House of Representatives, Green State Representative John Eder was narrowly defeated by Democratic rival Jon Hinck in a bitterly contested campaign over Portland's 118th District. Eder's loss deprived the U. S. Green movement's highest elected position in any state office. In the Vermont House of Representatives, the Vermont Progressive Party successfully maintained its six seats within the chamber. The Vermont Progressive Party has in recent years become one of the most consistently successful third parties in the U. S. to be elected to higher office. In Illinois, seemingly out of dissatisfaction with both the candidacies of Democratic Governor Rod Blagojevich and Republican candidate Judy Baar Topinka resulted in 10% of the electorate voting for the Green Party candidate Rich Whitney, an accomplishment, by all means, considering Whitney did not campaign on television or radio. In Montana, Rick Jore made history by becoming the first candidate of the right wing Constitution Party to be elected to a state legislature, elected to the 12th District in the Montana House of Representatives. Jore initially won in 2004 by three votes, only to see the courts throw out enough ballots to give the Democrats the victory. In the 2006 elections, Jore won convincingly, garnering 56.2% of the vote. However, the Montana Constitution Party is no longer chartered under the national party, denying the United States Constitution Party the claim of holding a higher office. Neither the Libertarian nor the Reform Parties gained any state legislative seats.

Numerous other elections for local, city, and county public offices were held. An unusual local election occurred in South Dakota; Marie Steichen was elected to Jerauld County Commissioner, despite the fact that she died two months before the election. Her name was never replaced on the ballot, and voters who chose her were aware of her death. In Richmond, California, a city of more than 100,000 residents, the Green Party challenger, City Councilperson Gayle McLaughlin, unseated Democratic incumbent Irma Anderson and became the first Green Party Mayor of a city of that size. Two candidates in Nevada's branch of the Constitution Party, called the Independent American Party (Nevada), were also elected to office. Jackie Berg was elected Eureka County Clerk with 54.1% of the vote, easily topping Republican and Libertarian opposition. Also, Cel Ochoa will be the new Constable in Searchlight, Nevada by virtue of winning 54.93% of the vote to defeat her Republican rival. Another Nevada Independent Party member, Bill Wilkerson, was elected to the Elko, Nevada, School Board, in a non partisan race. In Missoula County, Montana, residents passed a measure to encourage the County Sheriff's Department to make marijuana enforcement a last priority. In Dallas County, Texas, Democrats regained control in 41 out of 42 contested GOP judgeships, as well as the district attorney's office and the county judge's seat.

Many political analysts concluded that the results of the election were based around President George W. Bush's policies in the War in Iraq and corruption in Congress. At a press conference given to address the election results, President Bush called the cumulative results of the election a "thumpin'" by the Democrats.

Democrats promised an agenda that included raising the minimum wage, implementing all of the 9/11 Commission recommendations, eliminating subsidies for oil companies, restricting lobbyists, repealing tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, lowering interest rates on college loans, expanding stem cell research, investigating political appointees for actions taken during and leading to the war in Iraq, allowing current tax cuts to expire, and negotiating Medicare prescription drug prices. They planned to legislate these issues within their first 100 legislative hours of power in January 2007. According to Brian Wright, president of Democrasource, LLC (an Ohio based national political consulting group), "There's no question, the administration and Iraq set the tone for this year. This new balance of power can be a true catalyst to get the country back on track."

With apparent reference to the impact of the Iraq war policy, in a press conference held on November 8, Bush talked about the election and announced the resignation of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Bush stated, "I know there's a lot of speculation on what the election means for the battle we're waging in Iraq. I recognize that many Americans voted last night to register their displeasure with the lack of progress being made there." Prior to the election, Bush had stated that he intended to keep Rumsfeld on as Secretary of Defense until the end of his presidency. However, Bush then went on to add Rumsfeld's resignation was not due to the Democratic victories on November 8. Rumsfeld's job reportedly had been on the line for several months prior to the election, and the decision for him to stay until after the election, if he was going to be let go at all, was also reportedly made several months earlier. All this led to his resignation.

On the same day, then Speaker of the House, Representative Dennis Hastert of the 14th Congressional District of Illinois, said he would not seek the Minority Leader position for the 110th Congress.

In the aftermath of the election The Weekly Standard published a number of articles highly critical of how the Republican Party had managed the United States Congress. It called the electoral defeat for the G. O. P. "only a little short" of "devastating" saying the "party of reform didn't reform anything" and warned that the Democratic Party has expanded its "geographical sphere of Democratic power" to formerly Republican held states such as Montana, Colorado, Arizona, Wyoming, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota, while it solidified former swing states like Illinois as Democratic strongholds. In the New England region, popular Republican Senator Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island was defeated, despite having approval ratings near 60% and Republicans now only control a single district, the CT 04 seat held by Chris Shays, out of 22 congressional districts. The Democrats also became the clear majority in the Mid Atlantic region as well. Two Republican incumbent Congressmen were defeated in New York state and the Democrats picked up a Republican open seat, all from Republican regions upstate, and four Republican Congressmen were defeated in Pennsylvania. Democrats picked up seats in all Northeastern state legislatures holding elections, except Rhode Island, which remained unchanged (and Democrats clearly in the majority), winning a supermajority in both the Connecticut House and Senate, and winning both houses of the New Hampshire legislature for the first time since 1874. Democrats kept both vulnerable Senate seats in Maryland and New Jersey, winning them by wider margins than predicted, and they won the heavily contested Senate seats in Missouri and Virginia. The Democratic expansion into Indiana, Virginia and Ohio has "seriously diminished the chances for future Republican success" it claimed. The paper, which has been described as the "quasi official organ of the Bush Administration" also stated that more people would have to "bendover" to get anywhere in a political office and has called on Republicans to move to the center for the sake of the party's future viability saying "conservatives won't want to hear this, but the Republican who maneuvered his way into the most impressive victory won after moving to the center" and that "the South is not enough space to build a national governing majority".