# 2002 Midterm Elections First-term [[George W. Bush]] administration midterm — held in the immediate post-9/11 political environment and weeks after the October 2002 [[Iraq War]] authorization vote. **Republicans gained 8 House seats and took the Senate** — a historically rare first-term-presidential-party midterm gain. The political environment, [[Karl Rove]]'s strategic mobilization of post-9/11 patriotism, and aggressive use of the Iraq War authorization as a wedge issue against vulnerable Democratic senators substantially produced the gain. ## Result - **House:** Republicans gained ~8 seats; expanded majority (~229 of 435 Republicans vs. ~205 Democrats in the 108th Congress) - **Senate:** Republicans gained ~2 seats; took majority (~51 of 100 Republicans vs. ~48 Democrats vs. 1 Independent) - **Chambers flipped:** Senate — flipped from Democratic to Republican (had been Democratic for the 17 months since Jim Jeffords' May 2001 defection) - **Net change:** Republican gains; one of three modern American sitting-president-party midterm gains (1934, 1998, 2002) ## Notable - The **October 2002 Iraq War authorization vote** — Senate 77-23, House 296-133 — was operationally used by Republican campaigns to attack vulnerable Democratic senators (notably **Max Cleland** of Georgia, who had voted for the authorization but was attacked through television ads juxtaposing his image with Osama bin Laden's) - Cleland's loss to Republican Saxby Chambliss is the canonical case of the Rove-era post-9/11 wedge-issue political strategy - The **Department of Homeland Security** was operationally created in November 2002 — passed by the lame-duck Congress - **Norm Coleman** (MN) defeated [[Walter Mondale]] — Mondale had been recruited as Senate candidate after Paul Wellstone's October 25, 2002 plane-crash death ## Connections - [[George W. Bush]] — Sitting president. - [[Karl Rove]] — Strategic architect of the Republican gain.