U.S. House election, 1792

United States House of Representatives elections, 1792

← 1790 August 27, 1792 - September 6, 1793 1794 →
All 105 seats to the United States House of Representatives 53 seats were needed for a majority
Majority party Minority party   Leader Frederick Muhlenberg Theodore Sedgwick Party Anti-Administration Pro-Administration Leader's seat Pennsylvania-AL Massachusetts-2nd Last election 30 seats 39 seats Seats won 54 51 Seat change 24 12
Results:   Federalist majority   Anti-Federalist majority   Even split
Speaker before election Jonathan Trumbull Pro-Administration Elected Speaker Frederick Muhlenberg Anti-Administration

Jonathan Trumbull
Pro-Administration

Frederick Muhlenberg
Anti-Administration

Elections to the United States House of Representatives for the 3rd Congress were held in 1792 and 1793, coinciding with the re-election of George Washington as President. While Washington ran for president as an independent, his followers (more specifically, the supporters of Alexander Hamilton) formed the nation's first organized political party, the Federalist Party, whose members and sympathizers are identified as pro-Administration on this page. In response, followers of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison created the opposition Democratic-Republican Party, who are identified as anti-Administration on this page. The Federalists promoted urbanization, industrialization, mercantilism, centralized government, and a broad interpretation of the United States Constitution. In contrast, Democratic-Republicans supported the ideal of an agrarian republic made up of self-sufficient farmers and small, localized governments with limited power.

Despite nearly unanimous support for Washington as a presidential candidate, Jeffersonian ideas edged out Hamiltonian principles at the ballot box for congressional candidates, with the Democratic-Republicans taking 24 seats more than they had prior to the organization of their political movement. Most of the increase was due to the addition of new seats in Western regions as a result of the United States census of 1790. Dominated by agrarian culture, these Western territories offered strong support to Democratic-Republican congressional candidates. As a result, they secured a thin majority in the legislature.