GOP Holding On in Senate; Close Battle for House

The race for control of Congress headed for a photo finish Tuesday as Republicans appeared to keep control of the Senate but numerous House races remained too close to call.

Early returns and exit polls indicated that Republicans had picked up enough Democratic seats in the Senate and held enough of their own to put a majority out of reach for the Democrats.

In the House, Democrats’ hopes of regaining control rested on their ability to knock off a slew of freshman Republicans in tossup races scattered across the nation. But the GOP was hoping to offset those losses by snatching open seats from Democrats in the increasingly Republican South.

“It should be a very good day for us,” predicted House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) early in the day.

But the earliest results were a mixed bag for the GOP. Republicans suffered a major upset in New Hampshire, where they lost a Senate seat and the governorship in a state that has been a traditional bastion of Republicanism. And Democrats fended off the GOP in high-profile Senate races in Georgia, Massachusetts, Illinois and New Jersey.

The GOP managed to hold onto the hotly contested Senate seat held by conservative icon Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) and they picked up an Alabama Senate seat from the Democrats.

3 Seats From Control

Heading into the election, Republicans enjoyed a 53-47 majority in the Senate. Democrats need a net gain of three seats to secure a tie in the Senate--which would be broken in their favor by Vice President Gore--and four seats for outright control.

In the House, Republicans held a 235-198 majority (with two vacancies) and Democrats need a net gain of 19 seats to win back control.

The 1996 political climate was much less hostile to incumbents than in the last two congressional elections, but several incumbents could be sent packing.

The Senate was headed toward a marked regional shift: Democrats seemed to be in line to pick up seats in the North--with New Hampshire, Maine, South Dakota and Oregon the likeliest targets. But those advances were likely to be offset by Republican gains in the South. Such a swap would be in keeping with the trend of the last generation, which has seen the GOP base migrate from the Rust Belt to the Sun Belt.

But in the South, Republicans expanded their hold on Dixie when Alabama voted to send GOP state Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions to the Senate over his Democratic opponent, state Sen. Roger Bedford. In South Carolina, 93-year-old Sen. Strom Thurmond overcame reservations about his age and won reelection over Democratic real estate developer and textile heir Elliott Close. Republicans also were hoping for pickups in Louisiana and Arkansas.

John Kerry Prevails

Democrats managed to hang on to to two of their most hotly contested Senate seats. In Massachusetts’ marquee race, Democratic Sen. John Kerry fended off a tough, costly challenge from GOP Gov. William F. Weld. In Georgia, the race to succeed retiring Democratic Sen. Sam Nunn was won by Democrat Max Cleland, who had been losing ground to GOP nominee Guy Millner in the waning days of the campaign.

And in New Jersey, Democrats won one of the nastiest fights of the year. Rep. Bob Torricelli (D-N.J.) beat fellow Rep. Dick Zimmer (R-N.J.) in the struggle to succeed retiring Sen. Bill Bradley.

Democrats suffered a setback in Nebraska, where GOP businessman Chuck Hagel defeated popular Democratic Gov. Ben Nelson. Because that seat had been held by a Democrat, it dimmed prospects of a Democratic takeover of the Senate.

In Iowa, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) was facing a surprisingly tough fight from Rep. Jim Lightfoot (R-Iowa), a late-starting, come-from-behind challenger. Some Democrats attributed Harkin’s surprising weakness to a late attack on Harkin for opposing a bill outlawing late-term “partial birth” abortions.

In House races, voters across the country were splitting evenly between Democratic and Republican candidates, according to exit polls conducted by Voter News Service for Associated Press and five television networks.

The contests are so close in many races that the outcome may not be known until absentee ballots are counted.

The Voter News Service poll suggests that late-stage developments in the House campaign may have helped Republicans. Almost one in 10 voters interviewed said they decided whom to vote for in the last three days--and of those, 56% chose Republicans.

However, by a margin of almost 2 to 1, those surveyed expressed a negative view of Gingrich and half the voters interviewed said their opinion of him affected their decision in the House election.

Southern Races

The outcome of the House battle hinged largely on races in the South, where Democrats were trying to hold on to a large number of open seats in an increasingly Republican region, and in the districts of House Republican freshmen, many of whom had only a weak hold on the seats they won in the GOP tide of 1994. Republicans’ recipe for keeping control of the House was to pick up enough open seats from the Democrats to make up for losses among their freshmen and in other parts of the country.

Michael Patrick Flanagan (R-Ill.), one of the the GOP freshmen considered especially vulnerable, lost Tuesday. Other threatened GOP freshmen were Reps. Andrea Seastrand (R-Santa Barbara), Dick Chrysler (R-Mich.), Dan Frisa (R-N.Y.), and James Longley (R-Maine).

But in Kentucky, one of the first states in the nation to close its polls, Democrats had more trouble than Republicans in protecting their freshmen. Rep. Mike Ward (D-Ky.)--a first-termer the GOP had targeted for defeat--trailed his opponent, state Rep. Anne Northrup, in early returns. But GOP freshman Rep. Edward Whitfield fought his way back to reelection despite heavy Democratic opposition.

Other Democratic incumbents at risk included George Brown (D-San Berardino), Morris Hinchley (D-N.Y.) and Elizabeth Furse (D-Ore.)

Elsewhere Democrats lost an open seat they had previously held in South Dakota. But they got good news from Indiana, where early returns showed Julia Carson, a black Democrat, leading GOP opponent Virginia Blankenbaker for a seat vacated by retiring Democratic Rep. Andy Jacobs.

If Republicans manage to retain control of Congress, it will mark the first time since 1930 that the GOP has held a majority in the House for more than one term.

It would also signal a remarkable political recovery for a party that hit a public opinion nadir a year ago when budget battles with President Clinton shut down the government--and the GOP bore the brunt of the public’s wrath. That fury was stoked by a blistering campaign of negative advertising against vulnerable House Republican freshmen by the AFL-CIO and other Democratic allies.

Republicans began to turn the tide in August, when the GOP dropped their trademark take-no-prisoners, confrontational strategy and began compromising with Clinton to produce major laws on such popular issues as welfare reform and expanding access to health insurance. And in the final weeks of the campaign, the GOP and its candidates began launching an aggressive counterattack that may have helped stem the tide against them.

Foreign Contributions

Democrats said their chances in some House and Senate races may also have been hurt by disclosures about questionable foreign contributions to their party and by the fact that support for Clinton seemed to erode in the waning days of the campaign.

“Clinton is not finishing with a big strong kick,” said Democratic pollster Geoff Garin. “He’s not finishing on a high.”

Still, there were so many races--including many in California and other West Coast states--where the outcome was in doubt that Democrats maintained hope that they could still eke out a narrow majority. A Democratic victory would be a big setback for Republicans hoping that the 1994 elections marked a major shift in the balance of political power and the beginning of an era of long-term dominance by the GOP on Capitol Hill.