In a January 1 MSNBC.com article titled "That was 2006: The Year of the Sneer," MSNBC reporter Alex Johnson wrote that Democrats "just squeaked through" in the November 7, 2006, midterm elections. That section of the article was labeled "From the jaws of defeat." In fact, as the result of the midterm elections, Democrats have a larger majority in the House of Representatives 233-202 -- than Republicans ever had after gaining a majority in the House in 1994. Republicans last held a majority of more than 30 seats in the House during the 80th Congress, which sat from 1947-1949 and opened with a 246-188 Republican majority.
Moreover, as Media Matters for America noted, Democrats not only gained control of the House of Representatives and the Senate, they did so without losing a single seat in either chamber of Congress.* The last election in which a major political party retained all of its House seats came in 1938, when Republicans took 81 seats without losing a single one of their own. That year, Republicans -- like the Democrats in 2006 -- held all of their seats in the Senate as well.
Bold emphasis, mine
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