1854–55 United States House of Representatives elections

← 1852 & 1853 August 4, 1854 – November 6, 1855 1856 & 1857 →
All 234 seats in theUnited States House of Representatives[1] 118 seats needed for a majority
First party Second party Third party   Leader William A. Richardson Henry M. Fuller Nathaniel P. Banks Party Democratic Whig Know Nothing Leader's seat Illinois 5th Pennsylvania 12th Massachusetts 7th Last election 150 seats 68 seats 0 seats Seats won 83[a][2][3] 54[c] 51[2][3][d] Seat change 69 14 51 Popular vote 1,418,553[b] 580,929 631,510 Percentage 43.95% 18.00% 19.56% Swing 5.87pp 23.61pp 19.25pp   Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party   Party Anti-Nebraska Republican People's Last election Pre-creation Pre-creation Pre-creation Seats won 22[c] 13[c] 9[4][c] Seat change 22 13 9 Popular vote 196,461 182,245 102,423 Percentage 6.09% 5.65% 3.17% Swing New Party New Party New Party   Seventh party Eighth party   Party Free Soil Independent Last election 4 seats 3 seats Seats won 1[c] 1[e] Seat change 3 2 Popular vote 22,928 84,196[f] Percentage 0.71% 2.61% Swing 3.28pp 0.18pp
Results:      Democratic gain     Whig gain      Democratic hold     Whig hold      American gain     Anti-Nebraska gain      Republican gain     People's gain      Independent gain
Speaker before election Linn Boyd Democratic ElectedSpeaker Nathaniel P. Banks Know Nothing/American

The1854–55 United States House of Representatives elections were held in 31 states for all 234 seats between August 4, 1854, and November 6, 1855, during PresidentFranklin Pierce's term. Each state legislature separately set a date to elect representatives to theHouse of Representatives before the34th Congress convened its first session on December 3, 1855.

This midterm election was among the most disruptive in American history, auguring the collapse of theSecond Party System. Both major parties, theDemocratic Party and theWhig Party, lost critical voter support. The two parties had been organized as rivals for roughly 20 years. Northern voters strongly opposed to theKansas–Nebraska Act shifted sharply against the Democrats. The Whigs also lost seats as the party disintegrated over the issue ofslavery.

The elected majority temporarily coalesced as theOpposition Party. This transitional party included Whigs,Free Soil members,American Party members, (or Know Nothings) thePeople's Party of Indiana,Anti-Nebraska candidates, disaffected Northern Democrats, and members of the nascentRepublican Party, which soon would absorb most of these factions and replace the Whigs to rival the Democrats.

Candidates opposed to the Democratic Party won widely in theNorthern United States through November 1854. The American Party, ignoring slavery andopposing immigration (particularly by Catholics fromIreland andGermany) won seats from both major parties, but to the net loss of Democrats, inNew England and theSouthern United States from November 1854 into 1855.

Congress had passed the Kansas–Nebraska Act in May 1854 after aggressive sponsorship by thePierce Administration and Democrats led by SenatorStephen Douglas, including radical pro-slavery legislators. With widely foreseen risks and immediately negative results, the Act discredited the Democratic Party, fueling new partisan and sectional rancor. The Act repealed the 1820Missouri Compromise and triggered the violentBleeding Kansas conflict, creating uncertainty on theWestern frontier by abruptly making slavery potentially legal in territories originally comprising the northern portion of theLouisiana Purchase. Contemporary settlers of these territories then were expected to determine the status of slavery locally. This idea appealed to Democratic politicians and to some voters, but proved unworkable particularly in Kansas where more numerous Northern settlers and geographically closer Southern settlers violently disputed the status of slavery. Even some proslavery legislators and voters, particularly Southern Whigs, felt that repealing the Missouri Compromise was politically reckless, and that attempting to push slavery by law and force into territories where most settlers predictably were unlikely to want it could endanger slavery nationally, or even in the South. These fears proved prescient.

More than 21 representatives vied for the post ofspeaker of the House. After two months and 133 ballots, American Party representative Nathaniel Banks of Massachusetts, also a Free Soiler, defeated DemocratWilliam Aiken of South Carolina by plurality, 103–100.^[5] To date, Banks is the only speaker to come from a third party.

State	Type	Date	Total seats	Opposition		Democratic		Know Nothing
				Seats	Change[g]	Seats	Change	Seats	Change
Arkansas	Districts	August 4, 1854	2	0		2		0
Iowa	Districts	August 7, 1854	2	1		1		0
Missouri	Districts		7	6	2	1	2	0
Vermont	Districts	September 5, 1854	3	3		0		0
California	At-large	September 6, 1854	2	0		2		0
Maine	Districts	September 11, 1854	6	5	2	1	2	0
Florida	At-large	October 2, 1854	1	0		1		0
South Carolina	Districts	October 9–10, 1854	6	0		6		0
Indiana	Districts	October 10, 1854	11	9	8	2	8	0
Ohio	Districts		21	21	12	0	12	0
Pennsylvania	Districts		25	17	8	7	9	1	1
Illinois	Districts	November 7, 1854 (Election Day)[h]	9	4		5		0
Michigan	Districts		4	3	3	1	3	0
New Jersey	Districts		5	4	3	1	3	0
New York	Districts		33	25	13	5	16	3	3
Wisconsin	Districts		3	2	2	1	2	0
Massachusetts	Districts	November 12, 1854	11	0	10	0	1	11	11
Delaware	At-large	November 14, 1854	1	0		0	1	1	1
Late elections (after the March 4, 1855 beginning of the term)
New Hampshire	Districts	March 13, 1855	3	0		0	3	3	3
Connecticut	Districts	April 2, 1855	4	0		0	4	4	4
Rhode Island	Districts	April 4, 1855	2	0		0	2	2	2
Virginia	Districts	May 24, 1855	13	0		12	1	1	1
North Carolina	Districts	August 2, 1855	8	0	3	5		3	3
Tennessee	Districts		10	0	5	5		5	5
Alabama	Districts	August 6, 1855	7	0	1	5	1	2	2
Kentucky	Districts		10	0	5	4	1	6	6
Texas	Districts		2	0		1	1	1	1
Georgia	Districts	October 1, 1855	8	0	2	6		2	2
Louisiana	Districts	November 5, 1855	4	0	1	3		1	1
Mississippi	Districts[i]	November 5–6, 1855	5	0		4	1	1	1
Maryland	Districts	November 6, 1855	6	0	2	2	2	4	4
Total			234	100[2][3] 42.7%	29[j]	83[2][3] 35.0%	75	51[2][3] 21.8%	51

There were four special elections to the33rd United States Congress, listed here by date and district.

Note: From statehood to 1864, California's representatives were elected at-large, with the top two vote-getters winning election from 1849 to 1858.

Elections held late, on August 2, 1855.