United States House of Representatives elections, 1802

← 1800

April 26, 1802 - December 14, 1803

1804 →

All 142 seats to the United States House of Representatives
72 seats were needed for a majority

	Majority party	Minority party

Leader	Nathaniel Macon	John Cotton Smith
Party	Democratic-Republican	Federalist
Leader's seat	North Carolina-6th	Connecticut-AL
Last election	68 seats	38 seats
Seats won	103	39
Seat change	35	1

Speaker before election

Nathaniel Macon
Democratic-Republican

Elected Speaker

Nathaniel Macon
Democratic-Republican

Elections to the United States House of Representatives for the 8th Congress were held at various dates in each state, from April 26, 1802 (in New York) to December 14, 1803 (in New Jersey) during Thomas Jefferson's first term in office. It was common in the early years of the United Congress for some states to elect representatives to a Congress after it had already convened. In the case of the 8th Congress, the representatives from New Jersey were only elected after its first meeting on October 17, 1803.

The membership of the House increased significantly as a result of population gains revealed in the United States Census of 1800. The greatest growth was in territories that constituted the western regions of the country at the time, a tremendous boost for Democratic-Republican candidates. Nearly all of the new seats created as a result of the Census of 1800 went to Democratic-Republicans, closely aligned as they were with the agrarian interests of Western farmers. As a result, the Democratic-Republicans won the largest proportion of seats that either they or the competing Federalists had ever been able to secure in any earlier Congress, a supermajority greater than two-thirds of the total number.

The 1802 elections were the first elections following reapportionment after the 1800 Census. Thirty-five new seats were added in reapportionment, with three States having no change in apportionment, and thirteen States gaining between 1 and 7 seats. One further seat was added for the new state of Ohio.

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