Republicans Score a Sweeping Victory : Elections: The party wins majorities in the Senate and House. Voters shun Clinton’s activist government message.

In a victory of historic proportions, Republicans on Tuesday seized control of the Senate and the House, setting the stage for a frontal collision between a resurgent conservative Congress and a battered Democratic Administration.

Voter repudiation of the Democrats only two years after the party regained control of the White House marks a sharp turn away from the message of activist government on which President Clinton had campaigned in 1992.

Republicans, who started Election Day behind in the Senate, 44 to 56, wound up with at least a 52-48 advantage. In the House, where Democrats had been in the majority since 1954 and held a 256-178 majority going into the election, the Republicans were on track to pick up at least 50 seats, with the results depending on final vote counts.

Indeed, the depth of Republican strength was such that, as of late Tuesday, no GOP incumbent had lost a bid for reelection to any major office: the Senate, the House or governorships.

Republicans scored large majorities among the growing number of voters who believe that government cannot solve the nation’s problems, according to exit polls. The result is certain to restrict Clinton’s legislative ambitions further, forcing the President and his advisers to drastically reshape their plans for the rest of his tenure in office.

The balloting, said Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kan.), who is in line to become the next Senate majority leader, was a “vote of no confidence in the Clinton agenda.”

Clinton made no statement. He plans a nationally televised press conference today at 11:30 a.m. PST. But White House Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers signaled what part of the President’s response would be--insisting that Republicans, having captured a majority, would now have to deliver actual legislation. “The burden of government is now on them,” she said.

If projections for Republican control of the House are borne out, the GOP would take charge of all the legislative committee apparatus in both houses, giving its leaders far-reaching power to curb Clinton’s legislative agenda and to put him on the defensive by conducting investigations and rejecting nominations. In short, the Republican-controlled 104th Congress would be able to hinder Democrat Clinton much as the Democratic 102nd Congress hampered Republican George Bush in the last two years of his presidency.

The losses included some of the most prominent Democrats in the country. Democratic Gov. Mario M. Cuomo of New York, one of his party’s liberal icons, lost his office. So, too, did Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee until his indictment earlier this year on charges stemming from the House post office scandal, conceded defeat to his opponent, attorney Michael Flanagan.

Despite his indictment, Rostenkowski had been so confident of reelection that he had barely bothered to campaign, not even printing campaign literature--an act of hubris that had stunned even operatives in Chicago’s once-legendary Democratic political machine.

House Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.) was trailing in a tight race, according to early returns and exit polls. With 60% of the vote counted, Republican challenger George Nethercutt had 52% to Foley’s 48%. No House Speaker has been unseated since before the Civil War.

Voters nationwide also decided on a number of ballot initiatives. Two measures aimed at limiting protections for gays and lesbians appeared headed for defeat in Nevada and Oregon. Ballot measures to impose term limits on members of Congress appeared headed for success in at least three states.

Republicans piled up their Senate majority initially by winning races in six states where retirements by incumbent Democrats had left their party vulnerable--Maine, Michigan, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Ohio and Arizona.

They got two more, enough to take control, by knocking off Democratic incumbents in Tennessee, where their candidate, physician Bill Frist, a physician, defeated incumbent Sen. Jim Sasser and Pennsylvania, where Rep. Rick Santorum ousted Democrat Harris Wofford. One of the most powerful Democrats in the Senate, Sasser had hoped to become majority leader after Sen. George J. Mitchell of Maine announced his retirement.

In the contest for governorships, the GOP, in addition to winning New York, also wrested Texas and Pennsylvania away from the Democrats, with George W. Bush defeating incumbent Texas Gov. Ann Richards and Republican Thomas Ridge winning the vacant governor’s seat in Pennsylvania over Democrat Mark Singel. Former President Bush’s other son, Republican candidate Jeb Bush, was defeated in his bid to unseat Florida Gov. Lawton Chiles, a Democrat.

At a press conference in Houston, the former President said he was “heartbroken” over the Florida result but proud of both sons. “I don’t need vindication. All I need is pride in my sons, and I got that tonight,” he said. The congressional losses appeared to be among the worst for a party in power since 1946, when the Democrats also lost control of both houses of Congress. It was only cold comfort to the White House that President Harry S. Truman used the resulting Republican-controlled Congress as a foil for his come-from-behind election in 1948. In four other post-war elections in which the party in power lost heavily--races in 1950, 1958, 1966 and 1974--it lost the White House two years later.

Not only will the likely Republican control of Congress mean the end of Clinton’s hopes for most of his legislative program, it would also give the GOP power to bedevil the Administration with subpoenas and investigations of alleged ethical improprieties.

The Republican tide was particularly strong in the South, a one-time bastion of Democratic power that moved to the GOP in presidential elections a generation ago but had, until now, stayed loyal to long-entrenched Democratic incumbents in Congress.

This year, however, with many older Democrats choosing to retire, and with others battered by the deep unpopularity of Clinton, Republicans rode to victory in House races from North Carolina to Texas.

In Georgia, for example, Republican candidates took one seat vacated by a Democrat who retired and were well ahead of two Democratic House incumbents who had been locked in close races--Reps. Don Johnson and George (Buddy) Darden. In North Carolina, the GOP took four more seats and was locked in a dead heat in a fifth. In Tennessee, two more seats fell to the Republicans.

But the GOP surge extended far beyond Southern precincts. Republicans picked off four Democratic seats in Ohio, for example, two in New Jersey, at least two more in Indiana and seemed likely to take as many as five in Washington.

Exit polls conducted for the Associated Press and television networks showed 60% of Southern voters casting ballots for the GOP. Elsewhere in the nation, the two parties were running roughly at parity, even achieving a standoff in the traditional Democratic stronghold of the Northeast.

In Senate contests, Democrats received one break when Sen. Charles S. Robb (D-Va.) held onto his seat in a bitter three-way contest with Iran-Contra figure Oliver L. North and Independent J. Marshall Coleman, a Republican who had been recruited to run against North by the state’s senior senator, Republican John W. Warner.

They also took comfort from the victory of Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, probably the leading voice of liberalism in the Senate, who beat back the most serious challenge of his career from Republican Mitt Romney, son of the automobile executive and onetime Michigan Gov. George Romney.

As the Democratic bad news rolled in, Sen. John B. Breaux (D-La.) left a White House reception saying, “You know, I’ve never been in a minority before.”

In mid-afternoon, Clinton adviser George Stephanopoulos briefed White House Chief of Staff Leon E. Panetta and other senior aides on the early reports from the field. Asked about the mood of the gathering, a senior official said: “It’s no fun being at a political funeral.”

Republicans by contrast were confident. “This election has turned into a referendum on Bill Clinton and his record,” said Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Tex.), who headed the Republican Senate campaign committee. “I think people are saying they want to stop taxing and regulating.”

The Virginia race, between North, who was convicted of obstructing justice and accepting an illegal gratuity in connection with the Iran-Contra affair, and Robb, who admitted to sexual dalliances with women other than his wife, was among the most bitter of an extremely bitter year, and it clearly took its toll among voters.

According to the exit polls, four in 10 voters said neither Robb nor North had the honesty and integrity for the job. An equal number said their vote was against a candidate rather than for one with Robb’s victory, and no other losses.

In races for governor, Republicans began the day with 20 governorships to 29 for the Democrats, with one held by an independent. In addition to New York, Pennsylvania and Texas, Republicans seized executive mansions in Rhode Island, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Kansas, New Mexico and Wyoming.

And in heavily Democratic Maryland, Republican Ellen Sauerbrey, mobilizing independent and Democratic voters behind her anti-tax crusade, threatened a stunning upset of Democrat Parris Glendening. With nearly all votes counted, the two were locked in a near tie.

Many of the election returns showed a sharp split between men and women. In Massachusetts, for example, the exit polls indicated that Kennedy beat Romney among women by 62% to 38%, but split, 49% to 49%, among men.

The gender gap worked the other way around, however, in the Texas race for governor. Richards beat Republican George W. Bush, 53% to 47%, among women but lost, 47% to 52%, among men.

Ross Perot endorsed Richards during the last week of the campaign, but that endorsement did not sway the majority of his supporters. Among those who said they had voted for Perot in the 1992 election, 52% said they had voted for Bush for governor compared with 47% who said they had voted for Richards.

Other Key Races

SPEAKER SILENCED: Rep. Thomas S. Foley trailed Republican rival George Nethercutt in Washington state. His Speaker role was lost anyway, though, as the GOP captured the House majority. A36

KENNEDY AGAIN: Massachusetts voters stayed with a political dynasty, giving Edward M. Kennedy his seventh Senate term. He won after a touch-and-go contest with Republican Mitt Romney. A10

TEXANS TAP BUSH: Texas’ tart-tongued Democratic governor, Ann Richards, lost to George W. Bush, son of the former President. But his older brother Jeb lost to Florida Gov. Lawton Chiles. A34

ILLINOIS ERA ENDS: Attorney Michael Flanagan pried Rep. Dan Rostenkowski loose from his stronghold Chicago district, shutting down the 18-term engine of a political machine. A33

GOV. CUOMO UPSET: In a squeaker of a race, New York Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, a liberal icon, lost his campaign for a fourth term to state Sen. George Pataki, a Republican. A33