I have concluded that only I can do that, and if I can, I must.' The 1974 congressional midterm elections took place less than three months after Ford assumed office. The Democratic Party turned voter dissatisfaction into large gains in the House of Representatives elections, taking 49 seats from the Republican Party, increasing their majority to 291 of the 435 seats. Even Ford's former House seat was won by a Democrat. In the Senate elections, the Democrats increased their majority to 61 seats in the 100-seat body. The subsequent 94th Congress would override the highest percentage of vetoes since Andrew Johnson served as president in the 1860s. The Senate, meanwhile, lowered the number of votes necessary to end a filibuster from 67 to 60. At the time that he took office, Ford believed that inflation, rather than a potential recession, represented the greatest threat to the economy.
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