Strategists Predict Slim Majorities in Congress

Whoever wins the White House is likely to face a huge challenge dealing with Capitol Hill next year because neither major party expects to rack up substantial majorities in Congress in the November elections.

On Sunday, in their first joint interview of the campaign, four members of Congress who are spearheading the Democratic and Republican races for the House and the Senate offered their best guesses on how much ground they might pick up--or lose--in the narrow group of battleground contests nationwide.

The consensus: No one foresees big advances, and Democrats would be happy just to get the barest of majorities in chambers controlled for the last six years by Republicans.

Such scenarios would force the next president to work with both weak congressional majorities and strong minorities to pass legislation--a position of leverage for the White House, to be sure, but one that would require a brand of bipartisanship infrequently seen in Washington.

Meanwhile, Sen. Robert Torricelli of New Jersey, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, addressed what has become a ticklish issue since Vice President Al Gore, the Democratic presidential nominee, picked Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut as his running mate.

Lieberman says he intends to take advantage of a state law that allows him to seek reelection while he runs for vice president. But if the Gore-Lieberman ticket wins, that choice would hurt Democratic chances of erasing the 54-46 Republican Senate majority. The ensuing vacancy would be filled by Connecticut Gov. John Rowland, a Republican.

Torricelli, interviewed on NBC-TV’s “Meet the Press,” said Democrats could find another candidate to hold Lieberman’s seat if he chose to bow out of the Connecticut race by an Oct. 27 state deadline.

“I trust Joe Lieberman to make the right decision,” Torricelli said, affirming that from his perspective that would mean dropping the Senate race if it were clear Democrats were going to win the White House.

Lieberman’s dual-candidacy dilemma underscores the closeness of the battle for Congress. Republicans have a modest but not irreversible edge in the Senate. In the House, where Republicans hold 223 seats, Democrats 210 and Independents two, the outcome is considered a tossup; Democrats need to pick up at least seven seats to tilt the balance of power.

The prognostications offered by the House and Senate Democratic strategists, who have all raised substantially competitive war chests, confirmed the high stakes of each individual contest.

The chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, Rep. Thomas M. Davis of Virginia, predicted the House GOP majority “could increase slightly, but it’s going to stay pretty close to where it is.”

His counterpart, Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy of Rhode Island, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said his party hoped for a surprisingly broad margin of victory but added: “I’d be happy with a simple majority.”

As for the upper chamber, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said: “I’m not confident we’ll gain seats. I’m confident we will maintain control for four Congresses in a row for the first time since the ‘20s.”

Torricelli said: “I’m a modest fellow. I’d settle for a [50-50] tie”--to be broken, he added, by a Vice President Lieberman.