Herb Block believed that voters were the real losers in the 1946 off-year election in which Republicans accused Democrats of being Communists and the Democrats equated their Republican counterparts with Hitler. Voter discontent with rising food prices and shortages of such staples as meat and sugar, as well as the growing fear of the spread of communism from Europe, led to a Republican majority in both the House and the Senate. The newly elected congressmen included Richard Nixon, John F. Kennedy, and Joseph McCarthy, each of whom had a profound impact on American politics in the postwar era.