In the 1976 presidential election, Jimmy Carter won West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas, and Texas, and in the 1992 and 1996 presidential elections, Bill Clinton won all of the same states twice except for Texas, and in 1996, Clinton won the popular vote in the Southern United States as a whole by one-tenth of a percentage point (only the second time a Democrat won the popular vote in the South since 1964). When Republicans gained control of both houses of Congress for the first time in 40 years following the 1994 midterms, 8 of their gains came in Greater Appalachia while 9 came from the Deep South. Republican support among Southern whites improved from 52 to 65 percent from 1992 to 1994, and five Southern Democrats in the House (Nathan Deal of Georgia, Jimmy Hayes and Billy Tauzin of Louisiana, Michael Parker of Mississippi, and Greg Laughlin of Texas) switched parties. As part of the Republicans gaining a Senate majority, Republicans gained seats in Ohio, Oklahoma, and Tennessee with Mike DeWine, Jim Inhofe, and Bill Frist respectively, with Fred Thompson winning a special election to the Senate in Tennessee and Richard Shelby of Alabama switching parties.