[2] Perhaps the major reason for the Republican defeat was the backlash against the Army–McCarthy Hearings, in which prominent Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy accused countless political and intellectual figures of having communist ties, usually with no evidence.

Another issue was the Dixon–Yates contract to supply power to the Atomic Energy Commission.

Other factors included a comment made in Detroit by Defense Secretary Charles Wilson, former president of General Motors, equating unemployed auto workers with "lazy kennel dogs who sit... and yell.

"[3] However, it has been pointed out that losses in the midterm election were considerably less than the White House party generally faces in the midterm elections, and this has been attributed to the overall popularity of President Eisenhower, who participated in the campaign along with Vice-President Richard Nixon and other members of the cabinet.

[4] Sam Rayburn of Texas became Speaker of the House, exchanging places with new Minority Leader Joseph W. Martin Jr. of Massachusetts; they went back to what they had been before the 1952 elections.