WASHINGTON -- Democrats swept toward control of the House on Tuesday, ending a long turn in the minority. By 11 p.m., Democrats had picked up 19 House seats in Republican hands. They needed 15 to win the majority in the House, and a final result would depend on dozens of races yet uncalled.\nA loud cheer went up in a Washington, D.C., hotel ballroom a few blocks from the Capitol, where Democrats had gathered in hopes of celebrating an end to a dozen years in the minority.\nHouse Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California -- in line to become the first woman speaker in history if her party wins control -- said early in the evening, as the returns rolled in, "We are on the brink of a great Democratic victory."\nWith the polls still open in the West, Republican Party Chairman Ken Mehlman conceded nothing about the House. \n"I think we will hold control of the Senate," he added.\nRep. Nancy Johnson lost in her bid for a 13th term in Connecticut; Anne Northup fell in Kentucky after 10 years in the House; and Rep. Charles Taylor was defeated in North Carolina.\nScandal likely cost Republicans a seat in Ohio, where Democrat Zack Space won the race to succeed Bob Ney, who pleaded guilty to corruption this fall in the Jack Abramoff scandal.\n"It's very hard to watch," lamented Dick Armey, who was House majority leader from 1995 to 2003.\nSurveys of voters at their polling places nationwide suggested Democrats were winning the support of independents with almost 60 percent support, and middle-class voters were leaving Republicans behind.\nAbout six in 10 voters said they disapproved of the way Bush is handling his job, that the nation is on the wrong track and that they oppose the war in Iraq. Voters in all groups were more inclined to vote for Democratic candidates than for Republicans.\nOver half of the votes registered disapproval with the way Republican leaders in Congress dealt with former Rep. Mark Foley and his sexually explicit computer messages to teenage pages. They voted overwhelming Democratic in House races, by a margin of 3-to-1.\nThe surveys were taken by The Associated Press and the networks.\nHistory worked against the GOP, too. Since World War II, the party in control of the White House has lost an average 31 House seats and six Senate seats in the second midterm election of a president's tenure in office.\nAll 435 House seats were on the ballot along with 33 Senate races, elections that Democrats sought to make a referendum on the president's handling of the war, the economy and more.\nCongressional Democrats, locked out of power for most of the past dozen years, needed gains of 15 seats in the House and six in the Senate to capture majorities that would let them restrain Bush's conservative agenda through the rest of his term.\nBush was at the White House, awaiting returns that would determine whether he would have to contend with divided government during his final two years in office.\nPelosi was in Washington, waiting to learn whether her party would wrest control of the House from Republicans.\nSeveral veteran senators coasted to new terms, including Republicans Orrin Hatch in Utah and Richard Lugar in Indiana and Democrats Robert C. Byrd in West Virginia and Edward M. Kennedy in Massachusetts.\nDemocrats also gained the majority of governorships.
when scandal-scarred Gov. John Rowland resigned, Bob Riley in Alabama, Rick Perry in Texas and Sonny Perdue in Georgia. Also, Democrats Phil Bredesen in Tennessee, Brad Henry in Oklahoma, Rod Blagojevich in Illinois and Jennifer Granholm in Michigan won Tuesday.\nVoters filled state legislative seats and decided hundreds of statewide ballot initiatives on issues ranging from proposed bans on gay marriage to increases in the minimum wage.\nVoting was marred in scattered locations by equipment problems, long lines and other snafus, and Illinois officials were swamped with calls from voters complaining that election workers did not know how to operate new electronic equipment.\nMore ominously, the FBI said it was investigating reports of possible ballot tampering in Indiana.\nOverall, the Justice Department said polling complaints were down slightly from 2004 by early afternoon.
