Democrats Promise Broad New Agenda
Now in Control, They Plan to Challenge Bush

By Jonathan Weisman and Shailagh Murray
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, November 8, 2006

Democrats vowed to press a broad agenda of legislative change and to confront President Bush on issues such as the war in Iraq after seizing control of the House last night following 12 years of Republican rule.

Victories from New Hampshire to Arizona marked a rebuke to Bush and a House Republican majority that has served as a firewall for the White House's agenda. Republicans lost three seats in reliably Republican Indiana and a bellwether seat in Kentucky, and they suffered huge losses in Pennsylvania.

Veteran Republican Reps. Nancy L. Johnson in Connecticut and E. Clay Shaw Jr. in Florida lost to spirited Democratic challengers, while fresh-faced Republicans trying to retain the scandal-ridden seats once held by former Majority Leader Tom DeLay (Tex.) and former Reps. Mark Foley (Fla.) and Robert W. Ney (Ohio) could not overcome the baggage of their predecessors. Two other veterans, Gil Gutknecht (R-Minn.) and Sue W. Kelly (R-N.Y.), went down to defeat, as did one of the Republicans' most liberal members, Jim Leach of Iowa.

"The message is clear: This is a referendum on the Bush administration's failed policies and the inability of the Republican Congress to hold them accountable," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.).

"The American people have sent a resounding and unmistakable message of change and new direction for America," said Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.). "It's time for the endless campaign to stop and the hard work of governing to begin."

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is set to become the first female House speaker and the highest-ranking elected woman in U.S. history.

House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (Ill.), the longest serving Republican speaker, will almost certainly retire from GOP leadership as a new generation of Republicans tries to regroup.

"I'd like to congratulate House Democrats on a hard-fought campaign," House Majority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said last night. "We are deeply disappointed in the outcome, but as Republicans we must recommit ourselves to the principles that brought us to the majority and renew our drive for smaller, more efficient, more accountable government."

Democrats will probably come to power in January with a narrow majority and a crop of moderate-to-conservative lawmakers eager to keep their party rooted to the center of the political spectrum. By midnight last night, Democrats had scored a net gain of 26 House seats, 11 more than the total needed to win control, and held leads in several more races.

Early Democratic priorities will include raising the minimum wage, boosting homeland security spending, shifting the nation's energy policy away from oil and gas exploration toward alternative fuel sources, and reversing cuts to education spending.

Meanwhile in the committee chambers, aggressive new chairmen, such as Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.) and Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), promise a series of investigations and hearings into matters that have largely gone unexplored under GOP control, such as allegations of waste in Iraq and mismanagement of the war.

That alone could dramatically change the political atmosphere during Bush's final two years in office.

"We always recognized this was going to be a very challenging year," Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman said last night on CNN.

The first incumbent to go was six-term Rep. John N. Hostettler (R-Ind.), whose low-key, almost blase campaign style could not keep up with the polished candidacy of Vanderburgh County Sheriff Brad Ellsworth. He proved to be the first of three Indiana Republicans to lose. Rep. Anne M. Northup (R-Ky.), a proven survivor of Democratic assaults, then fell to Democrat John Yarmuth, a lightly regarded founder of an alternative newspaper.

From there, the Republican losses mounted quickly: both Republican seats in New Hampshire, House Appropriations subcommittee Chairman Charles H. Taylor in North Carolina and senior House Armed Services Committee member Curt Weldon in Pennsylvania. Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-Ariz.), who made his name as a bombastic conservative and, more recently, a firebrand against illegal immigrants, lost to mild-mannered Harry Mitchell, the former mayor of Tempe.

"They voted their hopes, not their fears. We have gone to America with this positive agenda for change, with a better agenda for all our people," said House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), who plans to seek the post of majority leader.

Taylor, of North Carolina, lost to former Redskins quarterback Heath Shuler, one of several Democrats in Republican districts who ran as moderate pragmatists, often sharing their constituents' more conservative stances on social issues, while vowing to put aside partisanship to produce the education, health-care and energy legislation that voters say they want. Republicans tried to attack these candidates as closet cheerleaders for the liberal Democratic leadership, but the tactic ultimately failed.

Republicans were still hoping to pick up two Democratic seats in Georgia, but late returns showed Democratic Reps. John Barrow and Jim Marshall narrowly leading in their races. That would set up another historic milestone: No party in modern times has failed to gain at least one seat in a House election, and Republicans were facing a shutout late last night.

Republicans faced the largest possible losses in the industrial Midwest and Northeast. In another early victory, Democrats took Vermont's only House seat, which was being vacated by Rep. Bernard Sanders, a liberal independent heading for the Senate. Republicans had hoped Martha Rainville, a well-polished adjutant general of the state National Guard, could blunt the Democratic surge by taking one seat from the Democratic column.

Charlie Cook, a nonpartisan political analyst, has called New York the potential GOP Waterloo. As many as half a dozen Upstate New York seats were in play, and expected landslide wins for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Eliot L. Spitzer and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D) might have depressed GOP turnout.

In Pennsylvania, three Republican-held seats were gone by midnight and two others were in danger. One of the Republicans' few bright spots was in Ohio, where losses were being held to a minimum. In New Hampshire, Republican incumbent Reps. Charles Bass and Jeb Bradley had appeared to be coasting to reelection, but both lost last night. Most of the Northeastern lawmakers who were in trouble are moderate or mainstream Republicans who try to steer clear of divisive and partisan battles. But they are highly vulnerable this year because of their support for the war in Iraq.

New Englanders in particular are deeply opposed to the war and furious at the Republican-led Congress for failing to challenge Bush's handling of it. Rep. Christopher Shays of Connecticut, long-serving and widely respected, eked out a victory, despite his unwillingness to call for the troop withdrawal that his constituents increasingly support.

After their successes in the East, Democrats quickly scooped up seats in the West, winning the seats of retiring Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.) and Hayworth. The Democrats were also running strong races in conservative Kansas and Wyoming.

The size of the Democratic victory was yet to be determined. Democrats were favored to pick up seats in Colorado and Iowa, where two Republicans are retiring to seek governorships. In New Mexico, Rep. Heather A. Wilson (R), a perennial Democratic target, was facing the toughest challenge of her political career from state Attorney General Patricia Madrid. Other candidates, such as Reps. Jim Ryun (R-Kan.) and Barbara Cubin (R-Wyo.), faced strong challenges that few political observers predicted a year ago.

Three West Coast races promised to keep politics watchers up into the early morning hours. California GOP Reps. Richard W. Pombo and John T. Doolittle had been hammered for their associations with disgraced lobbyist and convicted felon Jack Abramoff and could lose despite the strong Republican registration advantage in their districts. Freshman Rep. David G. Reichert (R-Wash.) was challenged by Microsoft executive Darcy Burner, but a wild card in that race was a torrential rainstorm that caused serious flooding around the state, possibly depressing turnout.

The late surge that Republicans were trumpeting over the weekend fizzled on Election Day, as exit polls indicated strong preferences for Democratic candidates throughout the country. The National Republican Congressional Committee chairman, Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds (R-N.Y.), had said for months that Republicans could overcome a sour mood by keeping House races focused on local issues. A final advertising blitz by Republicans also sought to paint Democrats as too inexperienced to be trusted with control of the House.

But in exit polls, voters said their votes were determined by national issues, especially corruption and the war in Iraq. That was ominous for Republicans.