November 4, 1958: Election Day. The Democratic Party, already in control of both houses of Congress, gain 49 seats in the House of Representatives, a total they have matched only once since, the "Watergate Babies" Class of '74. They gain 12 seats in the Senate, a total they have matched only once since, in 1986.
Among the new Senators elected were some names that would get bigger as the years went by. They included these Democrats: Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota, Edmund Muskie of Maine, Robert Byrd of West Virginia, Thomas Dodd of Connecticut, Philip Hart of Michigan, and Harrison Williams of New Jersey. On the Republican side: Barry Goldwater of Arizona, Hugh Scott of Pennsylvania, and Ken Keating of New York.
Among the new Democratic Governors elected: Edmund G. "Pat" Brown of California, J. Millard Tawes of Maryland, Michael DiSalle of Ohio, David L. Lawrence of Pennsylvania, Ernest "Fritz" Hollings of South Carolina, and Gaylord Nelson of Wyoming. On the Republican side, Nelson Rockefeller was elected in New York, and Mark Hatfield in Oregon. Hollins, Nelson and Hatfield would later be elected to the Senate.
Another Democratic Governor elected was John Patterson of Alabama, who essentially won by winning the Primary over George Wallace, by running an outright racist campaign. Wallace swore he would never be "out-(N-word)ed again." Since the State Constitution then forbid Governors from succeeding themselves, Patterson didn't run again in 1962, and Wallace did, and, for want of a better choice of words, kept his word, and won.
This election is a hard one to figure out. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a Republican, was personally popular, but his Party was not. There was a recession, but it had ended earlier in the year, and it wasn't as severe as those that would follow in 1973-76, 1981-83, 1990-93, 2001-02, 2007-10 and 2020-21.
Some people blamed U.S.-Soviet tensions, but 1958 wasn't an especially "cold" year in the Cold War. And the 2 biggest scandals to come out of the Eisenhower Administration -- the one surrounding his White House Chief of Staff, Sherman Adams, and the U-2 "spy plane" incident -- were both yet to come. Both of those may have helped the Democrats win the Presidency in 1960, but the Republicans actually gained Congressional seats at the same time.
During the recession, the unemployment rate rose from 3.7 percent in March 1957 to a peak of 7.5 percent in July 1958. In addition, industrial production declined by approximately 14 percent, and real Gross Domestic Project contracted by 3.7 percent. As a result, the stock market experienced significant losses, with the Standard & Poor 500 index falling by more than 20 percent.
The government extended unemployment benefits to those who lost their jobs during the recession. In September 1958, Congress passed the Temporary Unemployment Compensation Act, providing additional financial assistance to unemployed workers for 13 weeks.
Since Congress was already controlled by the Democrats, maybe the 1958 election wasn't so much a punishment of "Ike" as it was a reward to the Democrats.
The "Baby Boom" can't be credited, or blamed: The voting age was still 21, so the youngest voters would have been born in 1937, during the Depression. So maybe this election was the result of a "Baby Bust," as fewer children who would have grown up to vote Republican were born.
Who knows: Maybe the people were just sick of a Republican President playing so much golf.
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November 4, 1958 was, like all modern American Election Days, a Tuesday. Baseball season was over. Football was in midweek. There were no games scheduled in the NBA.
There was 1 game played in the NHL: The Chicago Black Hawks beat the New York Rangers, 4-2 at the Chicago Stadium.
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