GOP makes gains in House, Senate

WASHINGTON -- Republicans marched toward House control Tuesday night in midterm elections shadowed by recession, locking up enough Democratic seats to install a conservative majority certain to challenge President Barack Obama at virtually every turn. Speaker-in-waiting John Boehner, his voice breaking with emotion, declared to fellow Republicans, "I'll never let you down."

But the Republicans fell short in their effort to gain control of the Senate and take full command of Congress. The GOP did gain seats in the Senate and also wrested at least seven governorships from Democrats.

Boehner and his Republicans needed to gain 40 seats for a majority, and had exactly that number in hand a few minutes before midnight in the East. They led for another 24.

The victories came in bunches -- five Democratic-held seats each in Pennsylvania and Ohio and three in Florida and Virginia.

Among the House Democrats who tasted defeat was Rep. Tom Perriello, a first-termer for whom Obama campaigned just before the election.

With tears in his eyes, House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio flashes a thumbs-up Tuesday after addressing an election night gathering hosted by the National Republican Congressional Committee at the Grand Hyatt hotel in Washington. Cliff OwenAssociated Press

Obama was at the White House as the returns mounted, a news conference on his Wednesday schedule.

Boehner choked back tears as he spoke to supporters in Washington.

"Across the country right now, we are witnessing a repudiation of Washington a repudiation of big government and a repudiation of politicians who refuse to listen to the people," he said.

In Senate races, tea party favorites Rand Paul in Kentucky and Marco Rubio in Florida coasted to easy Senate victories, overcoming months of withering Democratic attacks on their conservative views. But Christine O'Donnell lost badly in Delaware, for a seat that Republican strategists once calculated would be theirs with ease.

Democrats conceded nothing while they still had a chance. "Let's go out there and continue to fight," Speaker Nancy Pelosi exhorted supporters in remarks before television cameras while the polls were still open in much of the country.

But not long after she spoke, Democratic incumbents in both houses began falling, and her own four-year tenure as the first female speaker in history seemed near an end.

With unemployment at 9.6 percent nationally, interviews with voters revealed an extraordinarily sour electorate, stressed financially and poorly disposed toward the president, the political parties and the federal government.

Sen.-elect Paul, appearing Tuesday night before supporters in Bowling Green, Ky., declared, "We've come to take our government back."

About four in 10 voters said they were worse off financially than two years ago, according to preliminary exit poll results and pre-election surveys. More than one in three said their votes were an expression of opposition to Obama. More than half expressed negative views about both political parties. Roughly 40 percent of voters considered themselves supporters of the conservative tea party movement. Less than half said they wanted the government to do more to solve problems.

The preliminary findings were based on Election Day and pre-election interviews with more than 9,000 voters.

All 435 seats in the House were on the ballot, plus 37 in the Senate. An additional 37 governors' races gave Republicans ample opportunity for further gains halfway through Obama's term, although Andrew Cuomo was elected in New York for the office his father once held.

Republicans were certain of at least six Senate pickups, including the seat in Illinois that Obama resigned to become president. Rep. Mark Kirk won there, defeating Alexi Giannoulias.

Democratic Sens. Russell Feingold in Wisconsin and Blanche Lincoln in Arkansas were turned out of office. In addition, Republicans scored big in races for Democratic seats without incumbents on the ballot. Former Rep. Pat Toomey won a close race in Pennsylvania, North Dakota Gov. John Hoeven won easily there, and former Sen. Dan Coats breezed in a comeback attempt for the Indiana seat he voluntarily gave up a dozen years ago.

"Republicans will continue to stand up for the American people and for the priorities they voted for today, and we are hopeful that the administration and Democrat leaders will change course," Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell said in a written statement.

Democrats averted deeper losses when Gov. Joe Manchin won in West Virginia -- after pointedly distancing himself from Obama -- for the unexpired portion of the late Sen. Robert C. Byrd's term, and Attorney General Richard Blumenthal was victorious in Connecticut, dispatching Linda McMahon, former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment. Sen. Barbara Boxer was elected to a fourth term in California, overcoming a challenge from Carly Fiorina.

The GOP gubernatorial gains came after a campaign in which their party organization spent more than $100 million, nearly double what Democrats had.

Among the incumbents who fell were Ted Strickland in Ohio, defeated by former Rep. John Kasich, and Chet Culver in Iowa, loser to former Gov. Terry Branstad.

In California, former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. was elected to the office he held for two terms more than a quarter-century ago.

In a footnote to the brutal politics of the campaign, Republican-turned- independent Lincoln Chafee was elected governor of Rhode Island. Obama campaigned in the state in the campaign's final week. But he declined to endorse the Democratic candidate, Frank Caprio, out of what the White House said was respect for Chafee, who had endorsed the president in his own presidential race two years ago.