United States House of Representatives elections, 1986

1984 ←

November 4, 1986

→ 1988

All 435 seats to the United States House of Representatives 218 seats were needed for a majority

	Majority party	Minority party

Leader	Jim Wright	Bob Michel
Party	Democratic	Republican
Leader's seat	Texas-12th	Illinois-18th
Last election	253 seats	182 seats
Seats won	258	177
Seat change	5	5
Popular vote	32,447,021	26,533,178
Percentage	54.3%	44.4%
Swing	2.2%	2.6%

Results:

Democratic hold

Democratic pickup

Republican hold

Republican pickup

Speaker before election

Tip O'Neill
Democratic

Elected Speaker

Jim Wright
Democratic

Tip O'Neill
Democratic

Jim Wright
Democratic

The 1986 United States House of Representatives elections was held on November 4, 1986, in the middle of President Ronald Reagan's second term in office while he was still relatively popular with the American public. As in most midterm elections, the President's party—in this case, the Republican Party — lost seats, with the Democratic Party gaining a net of five seats and cementing its majority. These results were not as dramatic as those in the Senate, where the Republicans lost control of the chamber to the Democrats. Notable freshmen include future House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL).

Source: Election Statistics - Office of the Clerk

Forty incumbents retired.

Nineteen incumbent Democrats retired.

Twenty-one incumbent Republicans retired.

Key to party abbreviations: AI=American Independent, C=Constitution, D=Democrat, G=Green, I=Independent, IP=Independence Party, L=Libertarian, PF=Peace and Freedom, R=Republican.

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