Greatest election night in GOP history?

[SingingAnalyst]

Should 1946 be on the list? Of course, the 80th Congress is best known for passing the Taft-Hartley Act and getting booted out two years later-- but I'm sure the excitement in GOP-land was nice while it lasted.

[SingingAnalyst]

It's a close call between 1980 and 1994. In both cases, the election results were a culmination of changes in public opinion that had been building for some time: For example, in 1980, growing middle- and working-class resentment of the perceived largesse of those on welfare, California's anti-tax Proposition 13, enacted in 1978, and a more conservative trend in general; in 1994, growing disapproval of Clinton's health-care overhaul and a growing sense that many members of Congress had been in power far too long, with growing support for term limits.

The only reasons I went with 1994 (and I could just as well have picked 1980) is that (1) in 1980, the GOP failed to take the House (I have no doubt that Clinton would have lost on an up-or-down vote in 1994); (2) the 1994 GOP takeover of Congress, like Trump's 2016 win, happened essentially without "celebrity" support (in contrast, in 1980 Frank Sinatra, Tom Selleck, and Eugene McCarthy were among those who endorsed Reagan, who was himself a Hollywood celebrity).