United States Elections, 2006 - Background

Background

In March 2003, President George W. Bush ordered an invasion of Iraq, a state which the U.S. government claimed was linked to the September 11 attacks in 2001, and, more importantly, was producing weapons of mass destruction. That May, just two months after the initial invasion, Bush announced the end of major combat operations in Iraq. In the following months, insurgents began resisting the American occupation. Additionally, religious tensions between majority Shiite and minority Sunni Muslims, tensions which had been suppressed under the grip of the Hussein regime, began to result in violence. By the end of 2003, despite the war being initially popular, the post-war occupation was losing support from the American public. A November 2003 Gallup poll showed that Bush’s job approval rating had fallen to 50% from a high of 71% at the outset of the war.

The next year, Bush won reelection over Democratic nominee Senator John Kerry with less than 51% of the popular vote and 286 electoral votes (only 16 votes ahead of the 270 votes needed.), the smallest winning margin for an incumbent president since Woodrow Wilson in the 1916 Presidential Election. It was, however, the first time since 1988 that a winner garnered a popular majority. Terrorism and the war in Iraq dominated the election, with domestic issues taking a secondary role. Bush began his second term with a continuation of the occupation and a push to overhaul Social Security with his privatization plan. Both policies proved unpopular, and violence in Iraq continued to increase. Compounding the unpopularity of the war was that no weapons of mass destruction were found. August 2005 was the last time any major public opinion poll recorded majority approval of Bush’s job. Negative perceptions of Bush following the slow governmental response to Hurricane Katrina further weighed on his popularity.

Simultaneously, the Republican-controlled 109th Congress’s popularity was declining as well. A series of notable congressional scandals also took place in Washington D.C., including the ongoing Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal as well as the Mark Foley scandal and the Cunningham scandal, both in October 2006. Throughout 2006, sectarian violence was ongoing in Baghdad and other areas of Iraq; many claimed that the conflict was evolving into a civil war. President Bush’s job approval rarely rose above 40%. Perceptions of Congress and Republicans in general remained highly negative. Additionally, the Congress had a smaller than average list of major accomplishments (considering that the Party in charge of both the House and Senate also had control of the White House) and was not in session for a larger than average amount of days, allowing Democrats and others to characterize it as a “Do-Nothing” congress and blame the Republican leadership for the lack of progress.