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Democrats Head For Bigger House Majority

WASHINGTON (AP) Democrats sought to pad their majority power in the House of Representatives at the polls Tuesday.

Long lines of voters queued up -- before daybreak in some cases -- as the polls opened across the country. Democrats were counting on heavy turnouts to capture more than 20 GOP seats, although the man who heads their campaign committee cautioned that the gains might not be in the range that some pundits had envisioned.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., did say Tuesday that a high turnout for Barack Obama should help Democratic down-ballot candidates. But over the past few days, he said, "we saw actually a tightening in a lot of races. That is why I've been careful ... about these huge numbers people are talking about."

There was no question about voter interest, however.

"I knew the lines were going to be really long," Jennifer Howard, 51, of Herndon, Va., told reporters as she got ready to vote. "I'm a nurse and I had to be at work on time," said Howard, who showed up 55 minutes before her polling place in Virginia opened.

It could be the first time in more than 75 years that Democrats would ride large waves of victory to bigger congressional margins in back-to-back elections. In 2006, they won 30 seats and control of Congress in a surge powered by voter anger over the Iraq war.

This year the sour economy and public antipathy for President Bush posed the biggest challenges for Republican candidates. The Democrats were aided by a wave of GOP retirements and huge financial and organizational advantages over Republicans.

That's despite voter hostility toward the Democratic-controlled Congress. Just one in five voters Tuesday approved of the job Congress was doing, about as poorly as Bush fared, according to AP exit polling.

Six in 10 voters cited the economy as the most important issue facing the nation. About half said the economy is poor and nearly all the rest said it's not good. The results were based on a preliminary partial sample of nearly 10,000 voters in Election Day polls and in telephone interviews over the past week for early voters.

First-term Democratic Rep. John Yarmuth of Kentucky jumped out to an early lead in his rematch against former GOP Rep. Anne Northup, whom he beat by fewer than 6,000 votes in 2006. He was one of a crop freshman Democrats in conservative-leaning districts who began compiling campaign war chests and moderate voting records almost from the moment they were elected two years ago, leaving only a few of them endangered on Tuesday.

Democrats now control the House by a 235-199 margin, with one vacancy.

GOP lawmakers at risk included Alaska's Rep. Don Young, Colorado's Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, Florida's Rep. Tom Feeney, Michigan's Reps. Tim Walberg and Joe Knollenberg. Rep. Lee Terry of Nebraska, once considered a safe bet for re-election, is also in major trouble in a state Obama is actively contesting.

Early election night bellwether seats included a GOP-held seat in Indiana, where polls closed at 7 p.m. EST and Rep. Mark Souder is encountering trouble that few expected just weeks ago. Whether Virginia GOP Reps. Thelma Drake and Virgil Goode hold their seats will offer further clues, as will the fate of Democratic freshman Rep. Carol Shea-Porter of New Hampshire.

Republican Party strategists expected to lose several GOP-held seats left open by Republican retirements or departures, including in Arizona, Illinois, Maryland, Ohio, Virginia, and two each in New Mexico and New York.

Democrats weren't expecting a clean sweep. Rep. Tim Mahoney, D-Fla., who is under investigation by the FBI and a House panel after admitting to two adulterous affairs, is all but certain to lose his re-election race. Other Democrats most at risk of losing include Reps. Paul E. Kanjorski in Pennsylvania and Nick Lampson in Texas.

Rep. John P. Murtha, D-Pa., who chairs a subcommittee with the most influence on the Pentagon's spending, was also in an unexpectedly tight race to keep the seat he's held for 34 years, after calling his district south of Pittsburgh "racist."

Democrats, who came out of their huge 2006 victory girding for losses this year, instead were able to aggressively spread their considerable wealth to campaigns around the country, including to traditionally Republican districts where their candidates normally wouldn't have had a chance.

Republicans, meanwhile, were fighting on a playing field skewed by the departure of 29 of their members, leaving lesser-known GOP contenders to battle better-financed Democrats in races shaped in large part by antipathy toward Bush.

Both parties took in huge amounts of campaign cash in House races, although Democrats had a clear edge. Democratic candidates raised $436 million, compared with Republicans' $328 million, according to federal data compiled by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

The parties' campaign committees also bankrolled the most competitive races, with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee pouring in $76 million and the National Republican Congressional Committee spending $24 million.

Because of hurricanes that delayed October primaries, the winners of two Louisiana seats -- one that belonged to retiring Republican Rep. Jim McCrery and another now held by indicted Democratic Rep. William Jefferson -- won't be known until December. Those districts held primaries Tuesday.

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Obama, Lautenberg Cruise To Wins In N.J.

TRENTON (AP) Barack Obama easily captured New Jersey's 15 electoral votes and Frank Lautenberg became the first New Jerseyan ever elected to five terms in the U.S. Senate on what was shaping up to be a potentially big night for Democrats in the Garden State.

The calls in those races were based on an analysis of voter interviews, conducted for The Associated Press by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International.

The main question to be resolved later in the evening was how many down-ballot Democrats could be swept into office on Obama's coattails. Democrats hoped to capture as many as three of the six congressional seats currently held by Republicans.

New Jersey's congressional delegation has been nearly evenly split, with seven Democrats and six Republicans.

Obama had maintained a double-digit lead in the polls for weeks over Republican John McCain in one of most Democratic-leaning states on the electoral map -- one that has not gone Republican in a presidential election in 20 years.

Voting problems were widespread but not systemic across New Jersey on Tuesday. Problems ran from early morning voting machine difficulties in Willingboro and Essex County to voters being turned away because their names were not in the books listing registered voters.

Attorneys for the state Public Advocate handled more than 250 voting appeals by midday and had prevailed in 90 percent of them.

"In many years of handling voter appeals, this is the most activity I have ever seen," said Public Advocate Ronald Chen.

A surge in new registrations -- 600,000 since January alone -- pushed the state's voter rolls to a record 5.4 million, and political experts predicted a turnout that might surpass the 83 percent of New Jersey voters who turned out for presidential races in 1940, 1972 and 1992.

Lautenberg shrugged off a challenge by Republican Dick Zimmer, a former congressman who had trouble establishing name recognition in an underfunded campaign. Lautenberg, who is 84 and would be 90 by the end of his next term was able to overcome voter misgivings about his advanced age.

Voters were choosing House members in all 13 New Jersey congressional districts and deciding two statewide ballot questions.

Democrats were hoping to flip three seats currently held by the GOP.

Those races -- in the 3rd District in Burlington, Camden and Ocean counties; the 5th District in Warren County and parts of Bergen, Sussex and Passaic counties; and the 7th District in parts of Hunterdon, Middlesex, Somerset and Union counties -- were expected to be tight.

The statewide ballot questions asked voters to consider two amendments to the state Constitution: one measure would require voter approval in most cases before the state borrows money; the other would allow the appointment of municipal judges who serve multiple communities to be made without the consent of the state Senate.

Bigger local elections included sheriff races in Atlantic, Cape May, Cumberland and Mercer counties; county clerk races in Bergen, Burlington, Morris, and Ocean counties; and mayoral races in several municipalities, including Atlantic City, East Brunswick, Passaic, Bayonne and Wayne.

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CBS News: Obama To Win Pennsylvania

Polls Begin To Close On East Coast; Exit Surveys Suggest Widespread Pessimism Over Economy, Congress, Direction Of Country

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NEW YORK (CBS) Barack Obama, seeking to become the first black president, moved ahead of Republican John McCain Tuesday night in the race for the White House in a country clamoring for change. Fellow Democrats picked up a Virginia Senate seat and elected a Missouri governor.

CBS News projects Obama will win Pennsylvania.

CBS News also projects Obama will win Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey New Hampshire, and Vermont. McCain will carry Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, West Virginia, South Carolina, Oklahoma and Tennessee.

Interviews with voters suggested that almost six in 10 women were backing Obama, and men leaned his way by a narrow margin. Just over half of whites supported McCain, giving him a slim advantage in a group that President Bush carried overwhelmingly in 2004.

The results of The Associated Press survey were based on a preliminary partial sample of nearly 10,000 voters in Election Day polls and in telephone interviews over the past week for early voters.

The same survey showed the economy was by far the top Election Day issue. Six in 10 voters said so, and none of the other top issues - energy, Iraq, terrorism and health care - was picked by more than one in 10.

The Senate seat that switched from Republican to Democrat was in Virginia, where former Gov. Mark Warner won his race to replace retiring Republican John Warner. The two men are not related.

Missouri's Attorney General, Jay Nixon was elected his state's governor, replacing a Republican, Matt Blunt, who retired rather than run again.

The White House was the main prize of the night on which 35 Senate seats and all 435 House seats were at stake. In both houses, Democrats hoped to pad their existing majorities, and Republicans braced for losses.

A dozen states elected governors, and ballots across the country were dotted with issues ranging from taxes to gay rights.

By tradition, the first handful of ballots were cast just after midnight in tiny Dixville Notch, N.H. Obama got 15 votes and McCain six.

They were the first of tens of millions in the race to gain 270 electoral votes and succeed George W. Bush on Jan. 20 as the 44th president.

An estimated 187 million voters were registered, and in an indication of interest in the battle for the White House, 40 million or so had already voted as Election Day dawned. Turnout was heavy. In Virginia, for example, officials estimated nearly 75 percent of eligible voters would cast ballots.

Obama awaited the results at home in Chicago after a marathon campaign across 21 months and 49 states. At 47, with only four years in the Senate, he sought election as one of the youngest presidents, and one of the least experienced in national political affairs.

That wasn't what set the Illinois senator apart, though - neither from his rivals nor from the 43 men who had served as president since the nation's founding more than two centuries ago. A black man, he confronted a previously unbreakable barrier as he campaigned on twin themes of change and hope in uncertain times.

McCain, a prisoner of war during Vietnam, a generation older than his rival at 72, waited in Arizona to learn the outcome of the election. It was his second try for the White House, following his defeat in the battle for the GOP nomination in 2000.

A conservative, he stressed his maverick's streak. And a Republican, he did what he could to separate himself from an unpopular president.

For the most part, the two presidential candidates and their running mates, Republican Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska and Democratic Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, spent weeks campaigning in states that went for Bush four years ago. Virginia, Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Iowa, Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada drew most of their time. Pennsylvania also drew attention as McCain sought to invade traditionally Democratic turf.

McCain and Obama each won contested nominations - the Democrat outdistancing former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton - and promptly set out to claim the mantle of change.

"I am not George W. Bush," McCain said in one debate.

Obama retorted that he might as well be, telling audiences in state after state that the Republican had voted with the president 90 percent of the time across eight years of the Bush administration.

After voting with her husband, the former president, Clinton called Bush "the lamest of lame ducks" and predicted that Obama would win and begin making presidential appointments and announcing economic policies within weeks.

The war in Iraq dominated the campaign early on, but by Election Day it had faded as an issue.

The economy mattered above all else, with millions facing home foreclosures, joblessness rising and Americans tallying the losses in their retirement accounts after a stock market plunge.

The race was easily the costliest in history, in excess of $1 billion, more after the congressional campaigns were counted.

McCain accepted federal matching funds, and was limited to $84 million for the fall campaign.

After first saying he would go along, Obama reversed course, then raised and spent multiples of what his rival was allowed.

McCain sought to make an issue of that, saying Obama had broken his word to the public. For weeks on end, he could not match his rival's television advertising onslaught.

Figures through mid-October showed Obama had spent roughly $240 million on television and radio advertisements.

McCain had shelled out about $115 million, and the Republican National Committee an additional $80 million on his behalf.

In the battle for Congress, Democrats began the night with a 51-49 majority in the Senate, including two independents. Their majority in the House was 235-199, with one vacancy.

In both cases, Republicans fought to overcome a financial disadvantage as well as numerous retirements.

The governor's races included open seats in North Carolina, Delaware and Missouri.

The ballot issues ran from a measure to ban abortion in South Dakota to proposals outlawing affirmative action in Colorado and Nebraska. Three states voted on gay marriage.