# 1978 Midterm Elections [[Jimmy Carter]] administration midterm. Republicans gained ~15 House seats and ~3 Senate seats; Democrats held both chambers but the cycle is conventionally treated as the operational beginning of the **[[New Right]]** mobilization that would deliver Reagan in 1980. The drivers: the **California Proposition 13** tax-revolt (June 1978), accelerating inflation, the **religious right** organizational formation ([[Moral Majority]] would be founded June 1979), and broader Carter-administration political weakness. ## Result - **House:** Republicans gained ~15 seats; Democrats held majority (~277 of 435 Democrats vs. ~158 Republicans in the 96th Congress) - **Senate:** Republicans gained ~3 seats; Democrats held majority (~58 of 100 Democrats vs. ~41 Republicans) - **Chambers flipped:** None - **Net change:** Modest Republican gains; the operational signals of the coming Reagan realignment ## Notable - **California Proposition 13** (June 1978) — voter initiative capping property taxes at 1% of assessed value and limiting annual increases — triggered the **tax-revolt movement** that subsequent New Right organizers would mobilize across the country - **Newt Gingrich** elected to the U.S. House from Georgia — the future Speaker of the House (1995-1999) whose [[Republican Revolution]] would transform the post-1994 Congress - **Mickey Edwards** elected (Oklahoma); founding members of what would become the **Conservative Opportunity Society** group within House Republicans - The **religious right** organizational formation accelerated through 1978-1979 — [[Bob Jones University]] tax-exemption case, the Christian school movement, [[Anita Bryant]]'s anti-gay-rights campaigns, [[Phyllis Schlafly]]'s anti-ERA [[Eagle Forum]] operations ## Connections - [[Jimmy Carter]] — Sitting president. - [[Newt Gingrich]] — Elected to House 1978.