The 1954 United States House of Representatives elections was an election for the United States House of Representatives in 1954 which occurred in the middle of President Dwight Eisenhower's first term. Eisenhower's Republican Party lost eighteen seats in the House, giving the Democratic Party a majority that it would retain in every House election until 1994. 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 U.S. House elections.