Democrats Appear Set for Election Gains

Rep. Don Sherwood, R-Pa., attends a rally Lewisburg, Pa., Friday, Nov. 3, 2006, for Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa. Sherwood is running against challenger Chris Carney. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) (Carolyn Kaster - AP)

The struggle for the Senate, where Democrats need to gain six seats for control, seemed less predictable. "I'm both feeling good and nervous," said Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, head of the Democratic campaign organization. "I wouldn't say we're going to take back the Senate and I wouldn't say we're not."

Democrats said they would defeat Republican Sens. Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania, Mike DeWine in Ohio and Lincoln Chafee in Rhode Island, and Republicans made little attempt to dispute them.

In the campaign's final days, the pivotal races were re-election campaigns by Sens. George Allen in Virginia, Conrad Burns in Montana, Jim Talent in Missouri and the Tennessee seat that Majority Leader Bill Frist is leaving to run for president.

In some respects, Burns and Allen held the key for Republicans, one a three-term incumbent hoping to fashion a come-from-behind victory, the other struggling to survive after a bedraggled, error-prone campaign.

The polls made Talent's race against Democratic State Auditor Claire McCaskill the closest in the country, and Bush made two stops in Missouri in the campaign's final days in hopes of saving the seat.

In Tennessee, late polls made former Chattanooga Mayor Bob Corker the mild favorite to defeat Rep. Harold Ford Jr., who is seeking to become the first black elected to the Senate from a southern state in more than a century. The Republican senatorial committee added more than $400,000 to its independent television advertising campaign in the final days of the race, and Corker wrote himself a check for $2 million in hopes of finally quelling Ford's persistent challenge.

In marquee gubernatorial races, Schwarzenegger's opponent, Phil Angelides, had trouble gaining traction from the start, and the Republican appears headed for four more years in office.

Democrats seem likely to counter in Massachusetts, where Deval Patrick hopes to become the state's first black chief executive; in New York, where Attorney General Eliot Spitzer is running well ahead; and in Ohio, where Rep. Ted Strickland hopes to lead his party on a rout of Republicans up and down the ballot.