WASHINGTON (REUTERS) — Republicans rolled to big wins in Tuesday’s midterm elections, holding control of the U.S. House of Representatives, scoring key Senate victories and re-electing Gov. Jeb Bush, the president’s younger brother, to a second term in Florida.
With Republicans pushing to overtake the Democrats’ one-seat majority in the Senate, the races for three Democratic seats were still too close to call. Democrats need to sweep close races in Missouri, South Dakota and Minnesota to have a chance to hold the Senate.
Television networks were going slow on projections as the nation’s largest exit polling service proclaimed its results unreliable.
All 435 House seats, 34 of 100 Senate seats and 36 state governorships were at stake Tuesday. A Republican Senate win would give them control of both chambers of Congress and the White House for the first time since Vermont Sen. James Jeffords became an independent last year, handing control to the Democrats.
That would be a huge victory for President Bush, who crisscrossed the country non-stop in the campaign’s final days to drum up Republican support. He would have increased clout to push his legislative agenda through Congress, including initiatives on taxes, a new Homeland Security Department and federal judicial nominees.
Republicans won key House races in New Hampshire, Kentucky, Connecticut and Indiana, and television networks projected they would hold the House and might gain seats. Bush hoped to become only the third president in a century to gain House seats in a mid-term election after Democrats Franklin Roosevelt in 1934 and Bill Clinton in 1998.
House incumbents who lost Tuesday included Republican Rep. Connie Morella in Maryland and Democratic Rep. Karen Thurman of Florida. Democrats James Maloney in Connecticut and David Phelps in Illinois lost matchups against incumbents caused by redistricting.
Republicans picked up a Democratic Senate seat in Georgia, where Rep. Saxby Chambliss defeated incumbent Democratic Sen. Max Cleland. But Democrats picked up a seat in Arkansas by knocking off incumbent Republican Tim Hutchinson.
Republicans held off Democratic challenges for open Republican seats in New Hampshire, Texas, North Carolina, Tennessee and South Carolina. Highly endangered Republican incumbent Wayne Allard pulled out a win in Colorado.
The Senate race in Louisiana was headed to a runoff, as Democratic incumbent Mary Landrieu did not gain the 50 percent of the vote needed to force a Dec. 7 runoff between the state’s two top vote-getters.
Republican Elizabeth Dole, a two-time Cabinet member and wife of former Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole, won a key victory in North Carolina against Democrat Erskine Bowles, former White House chief of staff, for the Republican seat of retiring legend Sen. Jesse Helms.
Republicans Lamar Alexander in Tennessee, Lindsey Graham in South Carolina and John Sununu in New Hampshire also held Republican seats.
Democrats scored a key Senate win in New Jersey, where former New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg, 78, a three-term veteran of the Senate who retired two years ago, will return after pulling off an easy win over Republican Douglas Forrester less than a month after replacing incumbent Democratic Sen. Robert Torricelli on the ballot.
Torricelli, trailing badly in polls after he was rebuked for accepting illegal gifts, had dropped out of the race.
In Florida, Jeb Bush beat back a strong challenge from Tampa lawyer Bill McBride. President Bush campaigned heavily for his brother in Florida, where he won his presidential victory two years ago after a five-week vote recount.
The president called his younger brother to congratulate him, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said, adding, “He’s very proud of his brother.”
Republicans scored a surprising win in heavily Democratic Maryland, where Republicans reclaimed the governor’s mansion for the first time in 36 years against Democrat Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, daughter of slain Sen. Robert Kennedy.
In Florida, where voting irregularities put the 2000 presidential-election result on hold for five weeks, new touch-screen equipment worked smoothly in the heavily populated southern counties of Miami-Dade and Broward.
“I think we finally have this monkey off of our back that we can’t conduct a proper election,” said Florida secretary of state Jim Smith.
Former Florida secretary of state Katherine Harris, who became a villain to Democrats and a hero to Republicans for her role in the state’s presidential recount in 2000, was elected to the House.
Allegations of irregularities and election-system foul-ups clouded voting in some other states, however. A computer glitch at polling stations in the heavily populated Fort Worth, Texas, area affected about 300,000 ballots and was expected to delay the count.
In Minnesota, Republican Norm Coleman faced Democrat Walter Mondale, 74, a former vice president, senator and presidential nominee who stepped into the race last week to replace Sen. Paul Wellstone, who died in a plane crash just days earlier.
Democrats hope to pick up three to seven of the state governorships, giving them a stronger organizational and fund-raising base for the 2004 presidential campaign.
Democrats won Republican governorships in Illinois, Pennsylvania, Kansas, Michigan and New Mexico but lost seats to Republicans in Maryland and New Hampshire. Republican Gov. Rick Perry won re-election in Texas, defending Bush’s former office from a challenge by free-spending Democrat Tony Sanchez.