Republicans hold on to House, Dems keep Senate, Democrats held on to a narrow majority in the Senate, ensuring a divided Congress with Republicans holding on to the House. A newly re-elected President Barack Obama will once again deal with a divided Congress as Democrats retained control of the U.S. Senate while Republicans kept their majority in the House of Representatives.
Democrats, who had more seats to defend, were once seen as vulnerable in the Senate, where 33 of 100 seats were on the ballot Tuesday. But two Republican candidates in Missouri and Indiana who had made explosive comments about rape and abortion were both defeated and an incumbent Republican in liberal Massachusetts was defeated. Republicans also lost a seat in Maine, where an independent who is expected to caucus with the Democrats won, while picking up one Democratic-held seat in Nebraska.
More than $2 billion was spent on a barrage of negative ads in the fight for Congress. All 435 House seats were on the ballot, and Republicans retained control there, though Democrats made a few gains. That meant Obama would have difficulty passing any ambitious pieces of legislation in his second term.
Control of the Senate does give Democrats a firewall against Republican attempts to overturn Obama's signature legislative achievement, his health care reform law, before it is fully implemented in 2014. Republicans had promised to repeal the law.
Only about a dozen Senate races were seen as competitive, and almost all of those that have been called — in Wisconsin, Virginia, Connecticut, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Florida — went the Democrats' way. That put them in a solid position to retain or even increase their 53-47 advantage in the Senate — a stark turn of events in a year that began with Republicans expected to win control of the Senate.
Democrats were in a precarious position, defending 23 seats and losing several retiring veterans in Republican-leaning states, all while voter discontent lingered over the sluggish economy and Obama's health care law. But the Democrats fielded some strong candidates, and Republican prospects were undermined by some candidates who proved to be too conservative and by the surprise retirement of Sen. Olympia Snowe in Maine.
Snowe, a moderate, voiced her frustration with the gridlocked Congress when she announced her retirement earlier this year. Independent Angus King, a former governor, won a three-way race to replace her.
King has vowed to be a bridge between the parties and has not said whether he would caucus with Democrats or Republicans. However, he was expected to side with the Democrats after Republican groups spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on ads attacking him.
Republicans will be left with only a few Senate seats in the Northeast. In a marquee race in Massachusetts, Republican Sen. Scott Brown, who managed to win the seat once held by the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, was defeated by Democrat Elizabeth Warren, a favorite among liberals for her work as a consumer advocate.
Congress consistently rates low in public opinion surveys, but incumbents still tend to get re-elected. They benefit from a system that gives them huge financial advantages in their re-election bids, and enjoy support from voters who tend to favor their own lawmakers even if they dislike Congress overall. Many incumbents in the House were also helped by the once-a-decade redrawing of district boundaries, which has just been completed.
After the last of the Senate races is decided, moderates from both parties in Maine, Connecticut, Nebraska, North Dakota, Virginia, Indiana and Massachusetts will be gone, and another in Montana could lose.
At least one new moderate will fill one of those seats. In Indiana, moderate veteran senator Dick Lugar had been expected to easily win re-election, but he lost a Republican primary to state treasurer Richard Mourdock, who was backed by the anti-tax, limited government tea party movement. Mourdock came under withering criticism after saying in a debate that when pregnancy results from rape, it is "something God intended." That opened the way for moderate Democratic congressman Joe Donnelly's victory in a state carried by Republican Mitt Romney.
In Missouri, another state won by Romney, Sen. Claire McCaskill had been considered the most vulnerable Democratic incumbent, but she defeated another tea party-backed candidate, congressman Todd Akin, who won the Republican primary. Akin was disowned by Republican leaders, including Romney, after he remarked in August that women's bodies have ways of avoiding pregnancy in cases of what he called "legitimate rape."
Two Democrats senators who rode a Democratic wave to the Senate in 2006 were elected to second terms: Sherrod Brown in Ohio and Bob Casey in Pennsylvania. In Virginia, Tim Kaine, a former governor and Democratic national party chairman, won a costly, close race against former Republican senator and governor George Allen.
In the tight race in Wisconsin, Democratic congresswoman Tammy Baldwin prevailed over former governor Tommy Thompson and will become the first openly gay U.S. senator.
In Connecticut, Democratic congressman Chris Murphy won the seat being vacated by retiring independent Joe Lieberman. Republicans had once hoped that the race would be won by Linda McMahon, the former head of World Wrestling Entertainment who spent more than $42 million of her own fortune in the race.
Democrats had been expected to narrowly retain control of the Senate but would remain nowhere near the 60-vote supermajority needed to easily pass legislation under Senate rules. Republicans managed to win a Democratic-held seat in Nebraska and still hoped to gain others in Montana and North Dakota.
Some favorites of the tea party movement did well. Republican Ted Cruz, the son of a Cuban-born father, won the Senate race in Texas, while Deb Fischer won in Nebraska.
The closest Senate races could be in the conservative western states of Montana and North Dakota. Republicans hope congressman Denny Rehberg will defeat Sen. Jon Tester, who won a close race during the Democratic wave election of 2006. In North Dakota, Republican congressman Rick Berg was the slight favorite to defeat former state attorney general Heidi Heitkamp for the seat held by retiring Democratic Sen. Kent Conrad.
In the Southwest, Arizona congressman Jeff Flake captured a seat being vacated by a Republican. In Nevada, Republican Sen. Dean Heller faced a tough challenge from Democratic congresswoman Shelley Berkley.
Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Republican House Speaker John Boehner were likely to remain leaders of their chambers.
GOP holds on to House
Republicans clinched control of the House for two more years, assuring that their conservative agenda will dominate the chamber and that future clashes with re-elected President Barack Obama lie ahead.
The GOP has won 217 seats. Two Louisiana Republicans will face each other in a December runoff, assuring the GOP will have 218 seats -- the number needed for a majority.
Their margin will likely resemble the majority they enjoy in the current House, which they control by 240-190. There are also five vacant seats.
By early Tuesday morning in the East, out of 435 House races, Republicans had defeated just four Democratic incumbents. Democrats ousted 11 current Republicans, including nine of the House GOP's tea party-backed freshman class of 2010.
Even before renewed GOP control was clinched, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio — re-elected to his seat without opposition — claimed victory and laid down a marker for upcoming battles against President Obama.
"The American people want solutions, and tonight they responded by renewing our House Republican majority," Boehner said at a gathering of Republicans in Washington. "The American people also made clear there's no mandate for raising tax rates."
One of the top fights when Congress returns for a postelection session this month will be over the looming expiration of income tax cuts first enacted a decade ago under President George W. Bush. Republicans want to renew them all, while President Obama wants the cuts to expire for the highest-earning Americans.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., refused to concede. She told Democrats rallying a few blocks away from the GOP rally where Boehner spoke that by evening's end, Democrats would end up "exceeding everyone's expectations and perhaps achieving 25," the number of added seats Democrats would need to gain House control.
The GOP's seemingly inevitable victory in the House was a contrast to how the party was performing elsewhere on the national stage. Obama defeated Republican Mitt Romney for the presidency and Democrats held onto control of the Senate.
Democrats in Illinois controlled the redrawing of congressional districts after the latest Census, and the new lines proved too tough for several incumbent House Republicans. Conservative tea party freshmen Reps. Joe Walsh and Bobby Schilling lost, as did moderate freshman Robert Dold and seven-term veteran Judy Biggert, a social moderate.
Other losing GOP freshmen were Rep. David Rivera of Florida, who was hurt by investigations into his past campaign financing; Ann Marie Buerkle of New York, who lost to the Democrat she defeated in 2010, Dan Maffei; and New Hampshire Republican Charlie Bass, ousted by Ann Kuster, the Democrat he defeated narrowly two years ago; and Francisco Canseco of Texas.
In Maryland Democrats defeated 10-term GOP veteran Rep. Roscoe Bartlett of Maryland in a race that was preordained after Democrats controlling the state legislature added more Democratic suburbs near Washington to his western Maryland district.
Embroiled in an unexpectedly tight re-election race was conservative Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn.
One victor was Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., who was his party's vice presidential nominee on the ticket with Romney.
Another winner was Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., D-Ill., the Chicago lawmaker who took medical leave from Congress in June and has been at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota for treatment of bipolar disorder. His only campaigning has been by automated phone calls to voters.
In Kentucky, GOP attorney Andy Barr defeated Democrat Ben Chandler after losing to him by just 647 votes in 2010. Chandler, among a dwindling number of moderate Blue Dog Democrats, has represented the district in Kentucky horse country surrounding Lexington, since 2004 but faced voters who heavily favored Romney, who easily carried the state over Obama.
Republicans also ousted Rep. Larry Kissell of North Carolina, a two-term veteran who was among several Democrats in the state who faced far tougher districts due to GOP-controlled redistricting.
In Pennsylvania outside Pittsburgh, Republicans defeated Democrat Mark Critz in what was one of the year's most expensive races, with both sides spending a combined $13.7 million.
Also defeated was Democratic Rep. Kathy Hochul of New York, who won a 2011 special election to her seat by attacking Republicans for trying to revamp Medicare.
There were 62 districts where no incumbents were running at all, either because they had retired or lost earlier party primaries or because the seats were newly created to reflect the census.
When combined with losses by incumbents, the number of new House members in the next Congress was still below the 91 freshmen who started serving in 2011 — a number unmatched since 1993.
Just weeks ago, Democrats had said they could win the 25 added seats they need to wrest control of the House.
As Obama's lead over GOP challenger Mitt Romney shrank as Election Day approached, Democrats' expectations for coattails that would boost their House candidates shrunk as well.
Republicans, building off their enhanced control of statehouses, also did a robust job of protecting their incumbents and weakening Democrats when congressional district lines were redrawn after the 2010 census, especially in states like Pennsylvania and North Carolina.
In addition, out of a record $1.1 billion House candidates and their allies spent in this year's races, more than 60 percent of it went to Republicans.
The economy and jobs dominated the presidential campaign, but there was little evidence either party had harnessed those issues in a decisive way at the House level. Both sides agreed that this year's election lacked a nationwide wave that would give either side sweeping strength — as occurred when Democrats seized control in 2006 and expanded their majority in 2008, and Republicans snatched the chamber back in 2010.
Polls underscored the public sentiment that Democrats had hoped they could use to their advantage.
A CBS News-New York Times poll late last month showed just 15 percent of Americans approved of how Congress was handling its job, near its historic lows. And an Associated Press-GfK poll in August showed that 39 percent approved of congressional Democrats while just 31 percent were satisfied with congressional Republicans.
Democrats, who had more seats to defend, were once seen as vulnerable in the Senate, where 33 of 100 seats were on the ballot Tuesday. But two Republican candidates in Missouri and Indiana who had made explosive comments about rape and abortion were both defeated and an incumbent Republican in liberal Massachusetts was defeated. Republicans also lost a seat in Maine, where an independent who is expected to caucus with the Democrats won, while picking up one Democratic-held seat in Nebraska.
More than $2 billion was spent on a barrage of negative ads in the fight for Congress. All 435 House seats were on the ballot, and Republicans retained control there, though Democrats made a few gains. That meant Obama would have difficulty passing any ambitious pieces of legislation in his second term.
Control of the Senate does give Democrats a firewall against Republican attempts to overturn Obama's signature legislative achievement, his health care reform law, before it is fully implemented in 2014. Republicans had promised to repeal the law.
Only about a dozen Senate races were seen as competitive, and almost all of those that have been called — in Wisconsin, Virginia, Connecticut, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Florida — went the Democrats' way. That put them in a solid position to retain or even increase their 53-47 advantage in the Senate — a stark turn of events in a year that began with Republicans expected to win control of the Senate.
Democrats were in a precarious position, defending 23 seats and losing several retiring veterans in Republican-leaning states, all while voter discontent lingered over the sluggish economy and Obama's health care law. But the Democrats fielded some strong candidates, and Republican prospects were undermined by some candidates who proved to be too conservative and by the surprise retirement of Sen. Olympia Snowe in Maine.
Snowe, a moderate, voiced her frustration with the gridlocked Congress when she announced her retirement earlier this year. Independent Angus King, a former governor, won a three-way race to replace her.
King has vowed to be a bridge between the parties and has not said whether he would caucus with Democrats or Republicans. However, he was expected to side with the Democrats after Republican groups spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on ads attacking him.
Republicans will be left with only a few Senate seats in the Northeast. In a marquee race in Massachusetts, Republican Sen. Scott Brown, who managed to win the seat once held by the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, was defeated by Democrat Elizabeth Warren, a favorite among liberals for her work as a consumer advocate.
Congress consistently rates low in public opinion surveys, but incumbents still tend to get re-elected. They benefit from a system that gives them huge financial advantages in their re-election bids, and enjoy support from voters who tend to favor their own lawmakers even if they dislike Congress overall. Many incumbents in the House were also helped by the once-a-decade redrawing of district boundaries, which has just been completed.
After the last of the Senate races is decided, moderates from both parties in Maine, Connecticut, Nebraska, North Dakota, Virginia, Indiana and Massachusetts will be gone, and another in Montana could lose.
At least one new moderate will fill one of those seats. In Indiana, moderate veteran senator Dick Lugar had been expected to easily win re-election, but he lost a Republican primary to state treasurer Richard Mourdock, who was backed by the anti-tax, limited government tea party movement. Mourdock came under withering criticism after saying in a debate that when pregnancy results from rape, it is "something God intended." That opened the way for moderate Democratic congressman Joe Donnelly's victory in a state carried by Republican Mitt Romney.
In Missouri, another state won by Romney, Sen. Claire McCaskill had been considered the most vulnerable Democratic incumbent, but she defeated another tea party-backed candidate, congressman Todd Akin, who won the Republican primary. Akin was disowned by Republican leaders, including Romney, after he remarked in August that women's bodies have ways of avoiding pregnancy in cases of what he called "legitimate rape."
Two Democrats senators who rode a Democratic wave to the Senate in 2006 were elected to second terms: Sherrod Brown in Ohio and Bob Casey in Pennsylvania. In Virginia, Tim Kaine, a former governor and Democratic national party chairman, won a costly, close race against former Republican senator and governor George Allen.
In the tight race in Wisconsin, Democratic congresswoman Tammy Baldwin prevailed over former governor Tommy Thompson and will become the first openly gay U.S. senator.
In Connecticut, Democratic congressman Chris Murphy won the seat being vacated by retiring independent Joe Lieberman. Republicans had once hoped that the race would be won by Linda McMahon, the former head of World Wrestling Entertainment who spent more than $42 million of her own fortune in the race.
Democrats had been expected to narrowly retain control of the Senate but would remain nowhere near the 60-vote supermajority needed to easily pass legislation under Senate rules. Republicans managed to win a Democratic-held seat in Nebraska and still hoped to gain others in Montana and North Dakota.
Some favorites of the tea party movement did well. Republican Ted Cruz, the son of a Cuban-born father, won the Senate race in Texas, while Deb Fischer won in Nebraska.
The closest Senate races could be in the conservative western states of Montana and North Dakota. Republicans hope congressman Denny Rehberg will defeat Sen. Jon Tester, who won a close race during the Democratic wave election of 2006. In North Dakota, Republican congressman Rick Berg was the slight favorite to defeat former state attorney general Heidi Heitkamp for the seat held by retiring Democratic Sen. Kent Conrad.
In the Southwest, Arizona congressman Jeff Flake captured a seat being vacated by a Republican. In Nevada, Republican Sen. Dean Heller faced a tough challenge from Democratic congresswoman Shelley Berkley.
Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Republican House Speaker John Boehner were likely to remain leaders of their chambers.
GOP holds on to House
Republicans clinched control of the House for two more years, assuring that their conservative agenda will dominate the chamber and that future clashes with re-elected President Barack Obama lie ahead.
The GOP has won 217 seats. Two Louisiana Republicans will face each other in a December runoff, assuring the GOP will have 218 seats -- the number needed for a majority.
Their margin will likely resemble the majority they enjoy in the current House, which they control by 240-190. There are also five vacant seats.
By early Tuesday morning in the East, out of 435 House races, Republicans had defeated just four Democratic incumbents. Democrats ousted 11 current Republicans, including nine of the House GOP's tea party-backed freshman class of 2010.
Even before renewed GOP control was clinched, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio — re-elected to his seat without opposition — claimed victory and laid down a marker for upcoming battles against President Obama.
"The American people want solutions, and tonight they responded by renewing our House Republican majority," Boehner said at a gathering of Republicans in Washington. "The American people also made clear there's no mandate for raising tax rates."
One of the top fights when Congress returns for a postelection session this month will be over the looming expiration of income tax cuts first enacted a decade ago under President George W. Bush. Republicans want to renew them all, while President Obama wants the cuts to expire for the highest-earning Americans.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., refused to concede. She told Democrats rallying a few blocks away from the GOP rally where Boehner spoke that by evening's end, Democrats would end up "exceeding everyone's expectations and perhaps achieving 25," the number of added seats Democrats would need to gain House control.
The GOP's seemingly inevitable victory in the House was a contrast to how the party was performing elsewhere on the national stage. Obama defeated Republican Mitt Romney for the presidency and Democrats held onto control of the Senate.
Democrats in Illinois controlled the redrawing of congressional districts after the latest Census, and the new lines proved too tough for several incumbent House Republicans. Conservative tea party freshmen Reps. Joe Walsh and Bobby Schilling lost, as did moderate freshman Robert Dold and seven-term veteran Judy Biggert, a social moderate.
Other losing GOP freshmen were Rep. David Rivera of Florida, who was hurt by investigations into his past campaign financing; Ann Marie Buerkle of New York, who lost to the Democrat she defeated in 2010, Dan Maffei; and New Hampshire Republican Charlie Bass, ousted by Ann Kuster, the Democrat he defeated narrowly two years ago; and Francisco Canseco of Texas.
In Maryland Democrats defeated 10-term GOP veteran Rep. Roscoe Bartlett of Maryland in a race that was preordained after Democrats controlling the state legislature added more Democratic suburbs near Washington to his western Maryland district.
Embroiled in an unexpectedly tight re-election race was conservative Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn.
One victor was Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., who was his party's vice presidential nominee on the ticket with Romney.
Another winner was Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., D-Ill., the Chicago lawmaker who took medical leave from Congress in June and has been at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota for treatment of bipolar disorder. His only campaigning has been by automated phone calls to voters.
In Kentucky, GOP attorney Andy Barr defeated Democrat Ben Chandler after losing to him by just 647 votes in 2010. Chandler, among a dwindling number of moderate Blue Dog Democrats, has represented the district in Kentucky horse country surrounding Lexington, since 2004 but faced voters who heavily favored Romney, who easily carried the state over Obama.
Republicans also ousted Rep. Larry Kissell of North Carolina, a two-term veteran who was among several Democrats in the state who faced far tougher districts due to GOP-controlled redistricting.
In Pennsylvania outside Pittsburgh, Republicans defeated Democrat Mark Critz in what was one of the year's most expensive races, with both sides spending a combined $13.7 million.
Also defeated was Democratic Rep. Kathy Hochul of New York, who won a 2011 special election to her seat by attacking Republicans for trying to revamp Medicare.
There were 62 districts where no incumbents were running at all, either because they had retired or lost earlier party primaries or because the seats were newly created to reflect the census.
When combined with losses by incumbents, the number of new House members in the next Congress was still below the 91 freshmen who started serving in 2011 — a number unmatched since 1993.
Just weeks ago, Democrats had said they could win the 25 added seats they need to wrest control of the House.
As Obama's lead over GOP challenger Mitt Romney shrank as Election Day approached, Democrats' expectations for coattails that would boost their House candidates shrunk as well.
Republicans, building off their enhanced control of statehouses, also did a robust job of protecting their incumbents and weakening Democrats when congressional district lines were redrawn after the 2010 census, especially in states like Pennsylvania and North Carolina.
In addition, out of a record $1.1 billion House candidates and their allies spent in this year's races, more than 60 percent of it went to Republicans.
The economy and jobs dominated the presidential campaign, but there was little evidence either party had harnessed those issues in a decisive way at the House level. Both sides agreed that this year's election lacked a nationwide wave that would give either side sweeping strength — as occurred when Democrats seized control in 2006 and expanded their majority in 2008, and Republicans snatched the chamber back in 2010.
Polls underscored the public sentiment that Democrats had hoped they could use to their advantage.
A CBS News-New York Times poll late last month showed just 15 percent of Americans approved of how Congress was handling its job, near its historic lows. And an Associated Press-GfK poll in August showed that 39 percent approved of congressional Democrats while just 31 percent were satisfied with congressional Republicans.
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