Will 2010 be another 1994?

First, Republicans today are much more divided. The GOP had its differences in 1994, too; but after years of toiling in the minority, the party was willing to act in unity to exercise power they had long been without. Furthermore, because many House candidates had been recruited to run in 1994 by Newt Gingrich, they were happy to follow Gingrich as Speaker once they were elected.

By contrast, the GOP has been going through turmoil all year, with many conservative and independent-minded “Tea Party” candidates winning surprise primary victories. If enough conservative upstarts are elected, expect future headaches for party leaders in both chambers.  As a result, even with their “Pledge to America” policy document, Republicans will likely have much more difficulty unifying around a legislative agenda in 2011 than they did in 1995.

Second, today’s top House Republican leader has a very different style and temperament than his 1994 counterpart had. Newt Gingrich was an aggressive and highly partisan Speaker who sometimes seemed more like a general in battle; by contrast, though John Boehner is certainly partisan, he is more inclined towards legislating, and is a far less polarizing figure, than Gingrich was.

Why might this matter? True, as Speaker, Boehner would face tremendous pressure from Republican conservatives to oppose, attack, and block Democratic initiatives. But Boehner also has the temperament and skill to build bipartisan coalitions on certain issues that could bypass more extreme conservatives in his own party – a strategy that Senate GOP leaders might also pursue successfully.

Third, unlike in 1994, the Supreme Court has made itself an important player in the election. Since the Court ruled in Citizens United v. FEC that unions and corporations could spend unlimited amounts in elections, campaign spending by non-party groups has been record-breaking: over $160 million so far, more than three times what was spent in 2002.

Democrats are already exploiting the decision by alleging that foreign money is going to Republican candidates, but don’t expect allegations of “dirty money” to vanish in November: Democrats will be tempted to question the independence of Republicans from corporate interests, if not the legitimacy of the elections themselves, and keep both the Court and campaign finance on the agenda for the 2012 elections.

So if 2010 isn’t like 1994, which election does it resemble? All elections are different in their own way, but each party can find at least one promising historical analogy. For Republicans, it’s the midterm elections of 1910, the last in which a minority party (Democrats) won the House but not the Senate. Democrats exploited their victory that year by using the chamber as an agenda-setting platform, passing popular measures that put Republicans on the defensive – a strategy that likely contributed to their takeover of the Senate and the White House two years later.

Democrats, by contrast, should hope that 2010 resembles 1946, the year when they lost majorities in Congress during President Truman’s first term. Despite their defeats, Democrats took advantage of divisions within the GOP and claimed Republicans were running a “do-nothing” Congress, managing to regain unified control of the federal government in 1948.

Regardless of which historical election ours best resembles, expect it to bring plenty of conflict, political maneuvering, and maybe some unexpected alliances – both within and between parties – in the 112th Congress.

Matthew Green is an assistant professor of politics at the Catholic University of America.