BREAKING NEWS: GOP routed. Webb's victory gives Democrats control of Congress after House win
BREAKING NEWS
NBC News and news services
Updated: 10:21 a.m. MT Nov 9, 2006
URL: msnbc.msn.com
WASHINGTON - Sen. George Allen will concede the Virginia race to Democrat Jim Webb when he addresses supporters Thursday afternoon, a source within the Allen camp told the National Journal.
The Journal, a MSNBC.com content partner, said the source was someone close to the Republican incumbent.
In a rout once considered almost inconceivable, Democrats have now won control of the Senate and thus both Houses of Congress after 12 years of near-domination by the Republican Party.
A count by The Associated Press showed Webb with 1,172,538 votes and Allen with 1,165,302, a difference of 7,236.
In Montana, the other Senate race that had not been decided on election night, Democrat Jon Tester by Wednesday afternoon had outdistanced Republican Sen. Conrad Burns, who had to fight off campaign miscues as well as his ties to Jack Abramoff, the once super-lobbyist caught in an influence-peddling scheme.
With 100 percent of precincts reporting Thursday morning, Tester had 198,302 votes, or 49.1 percent, to Burns’ 194,904 votes, or 48.3 percent.
If the margin of victory ends up within half of a percentage point — roughly 2,000 votes — Burns could request a recount.
But Montana Secretary of State Brad Johnson, a Republican, said that was not likely. “The margin appears to be too broad,” he said.
New Senate Democrats not all alike
Virginia and Montana wins for Democrats means 51 Democrats and independents in the Senate, and 49 Republicans. A 50-50 split would have given Vice President Dick Cheney a vote to break any legislative voting ties.
“In Iraq and here at home, Americans have made clear they are tired of the failures of the last six years,” said Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, in line to become Senate Majority leader when Congress reconvenes in January.
The Democratic majority counts on the support of two newly elected independent senators, Joe Lieberman and Bernie Sanders, who have declared that they will caucus with the Democrats.
The ideologies of the new Senate Democrats are as varied as their home states. Sanders, an independent who will replace Vermont Sen. Jim Jeffords, is a Socialist who has served in the House and voted with Democrats since 1990. Bob Casey Jr., who defeated Republican Sen. Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania, is an anti-abortion moderate. Webb once declared that the sight of former President Clinton returning a Marine’s salute infuriated him.
The shift dramatically alters the government’s balance of power, leaving President Bush without GOP congressional control to drive his legislative agenda. Democrats hailed the results and issued calls for bipartisanship even as they vowed to investigate administration policies and decisions.
Rivals 1994 election
As watershed elections go, this one rivaled the GOP’s takeover in 1994, which made Newt Gingrich speaker of the House, the first Republican to run the House since the Eisenhower administration. This time the shift comes in the midst of an unpopular war, a Congress scarred by scandal and just two years from a wide-open presidential contest.
In the House, Democrats won 230 seats and led in two races, while Republicans won 196 seats and led in seven races. If current trends hold, Democrats would have a 232-203 majority — 14 more than the number necessary to hold the barest of majorities in the 435-member chamber. Without losing any seats of their own, Democrats captured 28 GOP-held seats.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who would become the first female speaker in history, called for harmony and said Democrats would not abuse their new status.
Pelosi said she would be “the speaker of the House, not the speaker of the Democrats,” Democrats will aggressively conduct oversight of the administration, she added, but that any talk of impeachment of President Bush “is off the table.”
In the Senate, Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, the head of the Democrats’ Senate campaign committee, said, “We had a tough and partisan election, but the American people and every Democratic senator — and I’ve spoken to just about all of them — want to work with the president in a bipartisan way.”
Bush laments ‘thumpin’ ’
President Bush told reporters at a White House news conference Wednesday that the election was “a thumpin’” for Republicans. “It’s clear the Democrat Party had a good night.”
Bush made conciliatory gestures toward top Democrats on Wednesday, pledging to work with them and inviting them to lunch on Thursday in the Oval Office.
Exultant Democrats won an early victory Wednesday when embattled Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld resigned over the troubled war in Iraq despite Bush’s flat refusal to fire him.
In the House, Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said he will not seek to be elected his party’s House minority leader when Democrats take control in January.
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