GOP on track to hold U.S. House majority
Published 9:26 pm Tuesday, November 4, 2014
WASHINGTON — Republicans held a commanding edge in the House on Tuesday, on track to pad their majority at near historic levels and claim long-held Democratic seats in the South.
The GOP won more than 160 seats as polls closed in the East and Midwest and was certain to surpass 218 if incumbents prevailed as expected in the West. Republican challenger Evan Jenkins, a Democrat-turned-Republican state senator, knocked out 19-term Rep. Nick Rahall, one of the last white Democrats who had survived despite the GOP stranglehold on the South.
Republican businessman Rick Allen prevailed over another Southern Democrat, five-term Rep. John Barrow of Georgia.
Republicans capitalized on growing dissatisfaction with President Barack Obama as voters took out their frustration on the party controlling the White House. The pervasive malaise nationwide also dragged down Democrats.
Aggressive in the midterms, Republicans won the seat of a retiring moderate Democrat in North Carolina and knocked out another Democrat in Florida. Challengers had the edge in two Democratic seats in Illinois, Obama’s adopted state.
Some two dozen Democratic incumbents were in jeopardy but just a handful of Republicans faced competitive races as the 2010 GOP romp gave the party the upper hand in redrawing congressional districts favorable to Republicans.
In one bright spot for the Democrats, Gwen Graham, daughter of a former senator and governor, Bob Graham, knocked out two-term Rep. Steve Southerland in a Florida Panhandle district. Southerland’s all-male fundraiser and quip about Graham attending lingerie parties doomed his re-election bid.
Obama’s low approval ratings, around 40 percent, were a drag on Democrats, as was the electorate’s unease with the Islamic State group threat, Ebola outbreak and job losses. Promising economic signs of a drop in the unemployment rate and cheaper gasoline failed to help the president’s party, which typically loses seats in midterm elections.
The GOP, which currently controls 234 seats, was widely expected to exceed its tea party-boosted total of 242 seats in 2010. Republicans were likely to match the 246 of 1947-1949 when another Democrat, Harry S. Truman, occupied the White House. Democrats still hold the modern-day edge for most seats — 292 — in 1979.
“If we do, we’re up in territory we’ve not seen,” said Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. “You’re in pretty thin oxygen when you’re up there as a Republican.”
Republicans purposely lowered expectations at a gain of five to eight seats, but privately some said anything less than a net of a dozen seats would be a disappointment.
A solid GOP majority means Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, can afford defections from his increasingly conservative caucus and still get legislation passed while Republicans would hold more committee seats to guide the party agenda. Republicans are counting on partnering with a GOP-led Senate.
Boehner raised $102 million to ensure that Republicans would tighten their grip on the House.
For Obama, a dozen House losses would be an ignominious distinction. The president, whose party lost 63 seats in 2010, would become the two-term president with the most midterm defeats, surpassing Truman’s 74.
National Democrats worked furiously to keep the losses at a minimum, outraising Republicans $172 million to $131 million. But they were outspent by GOP-leaning outside groups that targeted Democrats, pumping $7 million against first-term Rep. Ami Bera in California.
