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Elections Oct 11, 2026Democrats vs. Republicans, Part 5: Who Runs Congress, and How Far Apart Are the Parties?

Posted on by Kemetic Mind

Data Watch · Democrats vs. Republicans, Part 5 of 7 · October 11, 2026, 8:00 AM CDT

Key Facts

  • Democrats held the White House, House and Senate together for 9 of the last 37 Congresses and Republicans for 5; the rest were divided or split.[1][2]
  • Divided government is the norm: 23 of 37 Congresses since 1953 had the presidency, House and Senate not all in one party’s hands.[1][2]
  • The gap between the average Republican and the average Democrat in the House has grown from 0.53 in the 83rd Congress (1953–55) to 0.91 in the 119th (2025–27) on the DW-NOMINATE scale.[3]
  • A review in the Annual Review of Political Science found the more unified parties are “not more effective than their predecessors at enacting policies.” [4]

A president proposes. Congress decides. So who actually held the power over the years, and how far apart have the two parties moved?

This is Part 5 of 7. We have compared presidents. Today we look at the other half of the government, which writes the budget and the laws.

The whole series
  1. Part 1: Jobs · Oct 7
  2. Part 2: Prices and paychecks · Oct 8
  3. Part 3: Growth and recessions · Oct 9
  4. Part 4: Debt and deficits · Oct 10
  5. Part 5: Congress (this post)
  6. Part 6: Voters · Oct 12
  7. Part 7: Red and blue states · Oct 13

Who held power

For each Congress since 1953 we recorded the president’s party and which party held the majority of seats in the House and the Senate at the start.[1][2]

Who held power, Congress by Congress, 1953–2027
Blue is Democratic, red is Republican. Gray marks the 107th Senate, whose control shifted during the Congress because of party switches and deaths, according to the Senate Historian.

President83th Congress, 195384th Congress, 195585th Congress, 195786th Congress, 195987th Congress, 196188th Congress, 196389th Congress, 196590th Congress, 196791th Congress, 196992th Congress, 197193th Congress, 197394th Congress, 197595th Congress, 197796th Congress, 197997th Congress, 198198th Congress, 198399th Congress, 1985100th Congress, 1987101th Congress, 1989102th Congress, 1991103th Congress, 1993104th Congress, 1995105th Congress, 1997106th Congress, 1999107th Congress, 2001108th Congress, 2003109th Congress, 2005110th Congress, 2007111th Congress, 2009112th Congress, 2011113th Congress, 2013114th Congress, 2015115th Congress, 2017116th Congress, 2019117th Congress, 2021118th Congress, 2023119th Congress, 2025House83th Congress, 195384th Congress, 195585th Congress, 195786th Congress, 195987th Congress, 196188th Congress, 196389th Congress, 196590th Congress, 196791th Congress, 196992th Congress, 197193th Congress, 197394th Congress, 197595th Congress, 197796th Congress, 197997th Congress, 198198th Congress, 198399th Congress, 1985100th Congress, 1987101th Congress, 1989102th Congress, 1991103th Congress, 1993104th Congress, 1995105th Congress, 1997106th Congress, 1999107th Congress, 2001108th Congress, 2003109th Congress, 2005110th Congress, 2007111th Congress, 2009112th Congress, 2011113th Congress, 2013114th Congress, 2015115th Congress, 2017116th Congress, 2019117th Congress, 2021118th Congress, 2023119th Congress, 2025Senate83th Congress, 195384th Congress, 195585th Congress, 195786th Congress, 195987th Congress, 196188th Congress, 196389th Congress, 196590th Congress, 196791th Congress, 196992th Congress, 197193th Congress, 197394th Congress, 197595th Congress, 197796th Congress, 197997th Congress, 198198th Congress, 198399th Congress, 1985100th Congress, 1987101th Congress, 1989102th Congress, 1991103th Congress, 1993104th Congress, 1995105th Congress, 1997106th Congress, 1999107th Congress, 2001108th Congress, 2003109th Congress, 2005110th Congress, 2007111th Congress, 2009112th Congress, 2011113th Congress, 2013114th Congress, 2015115th Congress, 2017116th Congress, 2019117th Congress, 2021118th Congress, 2023119th Congress, 20251960198020002020

Source: House Historian, “Party Divisions of the House of Representatives”; U.S. Senate Historian, “Party Division in the Senate”; the president’s party in February of the Congress’s first year (after the inauguration, when there was one); majorities counted from seat totals at the start of each Congress, both read Oct 6, 2026
How often one party held everything
Counting the 107th (2001–03) as split, because control changed during it
9
Congresses when Democrats held the White House, House and Senate together
5
Congresses when Republicans held all three
The other 23 of 37 Congresses were divided or split.
Source: Same sources as above

A single party held all three for only 14 of 37 Congresses. Holding all three is not the same as getting your way: laws still have to pass both chambers.

Moving apart

Political scientists measure how conservative or liberal each member votes with DW-NOMINATE scores. The method, created by Keith Poole and Howard Rosenthal, places legislators on a map by how similar their roll-call votes are; the main dimension is the liberal-to-conservative one.[3]

How far apart the parties vote: the gap between the average Republican and the average Democrat
Higher means the two parties’ average voting records are further apart on the main liberal-to-conservative scale.

00.511960198020002020

■ House   ■ Senate
Source: Voteview (UCLA), DW-NOMINATE first-dimension scores for every member of Congress, 83rd to 119th Congress, retrieved Oct 6, 2026; the plotted value is the average Republican score minus the average Democratic score

In the 83rd Congress the average Republican and average Democrat sat 0.53 apart in the House and 0.48 in the Senate. In the 119th they sit 0.91 and 0.92 apart. The gap has widened in both chambers, and most steeply since the 1970s.[3]

A reference work on polarization separates two kinds: ideological polarization, which is differing policy positions, and affective polarization, which is dislike and distrust of the other side. The roll-call scores measure the first kind. [5]

Video: Business Insider, “This 60-second animation shows how divided Congress has become over the last 60 years.” Embedded from YouTube.

What the data says, and what it does not

It says Washington is usually divided, and that the two parties’ voting records are further apart than at any point in this 70-year window.

It does not say the parties are equally responsible for the shift, or that more unity helps. In a review of the research, Frances Lee of the University of Maryland found it “undeniable that the two parties have grown more sharply differentiated,” but that the more cohesive parties “are not more effective than their predecessors at enacting policies,” and that the result is better described as “drift.” [4]

The data scientist’s corner: how sure can we be?
  • Seat counts are the totals at the start of each Congress (the official House and Senate tables), not later changes from deaths, resignations or party switches.
  • Voteview scores here average every member who served, including those who left mid-Congress, so they are close to but not identical to start-of-Congress figures.
  • The two scores measure how members vote on the issues that reach a roll call, so they can miss what never gets a vote.
  • Independents who caucus with a party are not counted in these party averages.
Plain-English terms
  • Majority: the party with more than half the seats in a chamber
  • Divided government: the presidency, House and Senate are not all held by one party
  • Roll-call vote: a vote in which each member’s position is recorded by name
  • DW-NOMINATE: a score from the voting record showing how liberal or conservative a member is

Check it yourself: the sources, by tier

Primary sources are the agencies and datasets themselves. Secondary sources are research and analysis built on them. Tertiary sources are reference works. Each was read before it was cited.

  1. Primary U.S. House of Representatives, Office of the Historian, “Party Divisions of the House of Representatives, 1789 to Present” (seat totals at the start of each Congress). history.house.gov
  2. Primary U.S. Senate, Senate Historical Office, “Party Division in the Senate, 1789 to Present” (seat totals right after each election). senate.gov
  3. Primary Voteview, UCLA (Poole and Rosenthal’s DW-NOMINATE; Congressional members file, 83rd to 119th Congress), retrieved Oct 6, 2026. voteview.com
  4. Secondary Lee, F. E., “How Party Polarization Affects Governance,” Annual Review of Political Science 18, 2015, pp. 261–282. Peer-reviewed review article. doi.org
  5. Tertiary “Political polarization in the United States,” Wikipedia (ideological versus affective polarization; polarization has increased since the 1970s). wikipedia.org

Investigative methodology: this series was written by a person from the sources cited, with every figure computed by a script from the primary data linked in each part; no language model chose or wrote a number. “Democratic” and “Republican” mean the party of the president in office. The comparison describes what happened under each party’s presidents. It does not show that a president or a party caused it.

Kemetic Minds Editorial Desk

Kemetic Minds Editorial Desk

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