Democrat Wins Montana Senate Race
Democrats won a cliffhanger race in Montana on Wednesday that brought them to the brink of control of the Senate, after Americans sick of scandal and weary of war ended the Republican majority in the House.
Early Wednesday afternoon, CBS News projected that Democrat Jon Tester will defeat Montana Republican Sen. Conrad Burns.
Reflecting the redrawn Washington landscape, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld agreed to step down, satisfying Democratic demands. President Bush said he will nominate former CIA Director Robert Gates to succeed Rumsfeld.
Mr. Bush expressed both disappointment and surprise over the election results and said he had called Democratic leaders to personally congratulate them. "Actually, I thought we were going to do fine yesterday," Mr. Bush said. "Shows what I know."
Mr. Bush quipped that he had given House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi the name of a Republican interior decorator to help her pick out drapes for her new meeting room — poking fun at the California Democrat's pre-election remark about having her pick of Capitol suites. Pelosi, D-Calif., is likely to become the first female Speaker of the House in U.S. history.
As to the role played in Tuesday's widespread Republican losses, Mr. Bush said, "I believe Iraq had a lot to do with the election, but I think there were other factors as well." He suggested that a variety of congressional scandals may also have played a role.
With Democrats now assured of 50 Senate seats, the battle for outright control came down to Virginia, where the Democratic candidate, Jim Webb, held a small lead over the incumbent, Republican Sen. George Allen.
For Republicans, it was an election that started out grim and got only grimmer with the new day. First, voters brought down the Republican House majority after 12 years in power and gave Democrats a majority of governorships for the first time in just as long.
Then Senate control began slipping away — the narrow GOP majority ground down to nothing, protected only by Vice President Dick Cheney's tie-breaking vote if the contest ends at 50-50.
Democrats hoped to shape a 51-49 majority with a victory for Webb, a former Navy secretary under Ronald Reagan. Webb led by fewer than 9,000 votes out of more than 2.3 million cast. With the margin so small and so much on the line, Allen was not conceding. A recount, which would be conducted by a panel of judges, would take weeks.
Electoral officials were canvassing the unofficial results Wednesday, and both parties had teams ready to monitor and intervene in the event of a recount, anticipating the process could stretch into next month.
In Montana, Tester, an organic grain farmer who lost three fingers in a meat grinder, prevailed in a protracted contest with Burns, who was weakened politically by his ties to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Tester held a 3,128-vote lead over Burns with only one county left to count its votes. That county had fewer than 1,000 votes to report. An Associated Press canvass of Montana counties estimated there were not enough provisional ballots still to be counted for Burns to overcome his deficit.
That meant the election of 48 Democratic senators as well as two Democratic-voting Independents — Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
A succession of tainted Republicans lost seats as their leaders lost power, a stinging referendum on the ways of Washington. A large majority of voters surveyed across the country said their disgust with corruption influenced their choice.
Democrats took solid control in the House, rebounding after a dozen years in the minority.
As a result, Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., told fellow Republican lawmakers Wednesday that he does not intend to run for minority leader when Democrats take control of the House in January, officials said.
His decision to step down cleared the way for a likely succession battle. Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, the majority leader, is expected to run, and Reps. Mike Pence of Indiana and Joe Barton of Texas have also signaled they may make a bid for leadership positions.
Pelosi said Wednesday that American voters "spoke for change and they spoke for a new direction for all Americans." She said voters specifically demanded a change in course on the war in Iraq and urged Mr. Bush "to listen to the voice of the people."
"Democrats are prepared to lead," she told a news conference in the Capitol. "We are prepared to govern in a bipartisan way."
President Bush called Pelosi with congratulations Wednesday morning, and Pelosi said she told Mr. Bush she was ready to work with him. "The success of the president is always good for the country, and I hope that we could work together for the American people," she said.
In Virginia, Webb, a former Navy secretary under Ronald Reagan, claimed victory on the basis of the tiny lead, but Allen was not conceding.
There are no automatic recounts in Virginia, but state law allows a candidate who finishes a half-percentage point or less behind to request a recount paid for by state and local governments. With a margin greater than that but less than 1 percentage point, the trailing candidate can also seek a recount, but would have to pay the costs if the results are unchanged.
A final count, including all absentee ballots, is expected later Wednesday; no exact numbers on outstanding absentee ballots were immediately available.
But, as CBS News correspondent Wyatt Andrews reports that a recount can't formally be requested until the vote is certified on November 27, so the final decision may not be resolved for weeks.
Exit polls showed voters perceived the battle for the House as a nationalized election, with most voters saying national issues outweighed local ones.
Most said Mr. Bush was a factor in their vote, and more cast ballots to oppose him than to support him. Most voters said they were angry or dissatisfied with the administration.
A majority of voters, 56 percent, said they disapproved of the war in Iraq. As expected, voters who supported the war backed Republicans and those who disapproved of it backed Democrats.
"It is all about the president and the war in Iraq," said CBS News chief Washington correspondent Bob Schieffer.
Most voters said they had made up their minds about their votes last month or before.
"We're seeing a huge turn in independent voters to the Democrats," said CBS News political consultant Stu Rothenberg. "National exit polls show a significant advantage for Democratic candidates."
Democrats picked up five of the six Senate seats they needed to form a majority in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Missouri and Montana.
On the House side, Republican incumbents went down in nearly every region of the country. The Democrats will win at least 27 Republican-held seats, according to the latest CBS News estimates.
Ethics woes clearly took a toll on the GOP.
Republicans surrendered the Ohio seat once held by Bob Ney, who resigned after pleading guilty in a lobbying scandal, and the Florida seat of Mark Foley, who stepped down after the disclosure that he sent sexually explicit messages to male congressional pages.
In Pennsylvania, Democrats defeated Curt Weldon in the fallout from a federal corruption investigation. They also ousted Don Sherwood, who admitted to a long-term affair with a much younger woman who says he choked her.
The election results pose a difficult challenge for the president.
"The challenge is that almost all moderate Republicans in the House and even some in the Senate are wiped out," said CBS News political consultant Norm Ornstein. "If you move to the middle, there are some Republicans you'll have to convince to move with you. Bush will also have to work with Democratic leaders who don't like him and don't trust him. And the feeling is mutual."
Despite the Democrats' victory, Pelosi also faces a tough job.
"These Democrats that were elected last night are conservative Democrats. They are not like some of the liberal firebrands in the house right now," Schieffer said. "So she has to bring those two groups together and make them a cohesive force, or else what you will see is a Republican president reaching out to the conservative Democrats and forming coalitions."
Democrats also won a majority of the statehouses, including Massachusetts, where Deval Patrick becomes the state's first black chief executive.
Voters also filled state legislative seats and decided hundreds of statewide ballot initiatives. In South Dakota, a measure that would ban nearly all abortions in the state was voted down.
A closely-watched high-profile amendment to guarantee that all federally allowed stem cell research can occur in Missouri, including on human embryos, passed with about 51 percent support.