Senate elections In the Senate elections, Republicans picked up open seats in Ohio and Kentucky and narrowly defeated Democratic incumbent
Carol Moseley Braun (Illinois), but these were cancelled out by the Democrats' gain of an open seat in Indiana and defeats of Republican Senators Al D'Amato (New York) and Lauch Faircloth (North Carolina). The balance of the Senate remained unchanged at 55–45 in favor of the Republicans.
House of Representatives elections The House of Representatives elections saw a significant disruption of the historic
six-year itch trend, where the president's party loses seats in the second-term midterm elections. Though Republicans won the national popular vote for the House by a margin of 1.1 percentage points and retained control of the chamber, Democrats picked up a net of five seats. This marked the second time since the
Civil War in which the president's party gained seats in the House of Representatives in a midterm election, following the
1934 elections. Republicans would later gain seats during the
2002 mid-terms. The 1998 elections were the first time since
1822 in which the president's party gained seats in the House during the president's second midterm. The
impeachment of Clinton likely played a major role in the success of the Democratic Party in the House and Senate elections. The election precipitated a change in Republican leadership, with
Newt Gingrich resigning as
Speaker of the House. ==State elections==