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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

America’s balance of power shifts as GOP takes Senate

David Lightman McClatchy-Tribune

WASHINGTON – Republicans seized control of the U.S. Senate Tuesday, mobilizing voter discontent with President Barack Obama across the country and setting up partisan economic and foreign policy showdowns over the final two years of his presidency.

The Republican Party will control both houses of Congress for the first time in eight years. It will be the first time since Obama took office that he will not have a friendly Senate and the first time he’s faced an entire Congress under opposition control.

Leading the Senate will be Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican who successfully crushed Democrats’ expensive bid to oust him. In the House of Representatives, Speaker John Boehner of Ohio could lead the biggest Republican bloc in 65 years.

The two leaders vowed Tuesday to push the Republican agenda quickly and aggressively when the new Congress convenes in January.

“Tonight, Kentuckians said we can do better as a nation,” McConnell said in his victory speech in Louisville. “Tonight, they said we can have real change in Washington. Real change, and that’s just what I intend to deliver.”

Boehner, who has watched Republican bill after bill die for years in the Democratic-led Senate, pledged votes on “common-sense jobs and energy bills that passed the Republican-led House in recent years with bipartisan support but were never even brought to a vote by the outgoing Senate majority.”

Obama was at the White House as voters remade Congress for the final two years of his tenure. With lawmakers set to convene next week for a postelection session, he invited leaders to a meeting on Friday.

The shift in control of the Senate, coupled with a GOP-led House, probably means a strong GOP assault on budget deficits, additional pressure on Democrats to accept sweeping changes to the health care law that stands as Obama’s main domestic accomplishment and a bid to reduce federal regulations.

Obama’s ability to win confirmation for lifetime judicial appointments could also suffer, including any Supreme Court vacancies.

Senate Democrats tried to be conciliatory. “The message from voters is clear: they want us to work together,” said Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

Maybe. Voters from coast to coast signaled Tuesday they’re eager for Republicans to act. The party won Democratic-held Senate seats in Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, Montana, North Carolina, South Dakota and West Virginia, assuring them of majority control of the Senate for the first time since January 2007. Among the Democratic losses were incumbent senators in Arkansas, Colorado and North Carolina.

Other possible Republican pickups loomed in Alaska and in a December runoff election in Louisiana.

Democratic efforts to offset the Republican momentum with gains of their own failed.

Along with takeover in the Senate, Republicans claimed a commanding majority in the House on Tuesday, pushing their dominance to near-historic levels as they dispatched the last white Democrats in the South and made inroads in Democratic strongholds nationwide.

In the Kentucky Senate race, McConnell easily beat Democratic Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes. The Democrats had hopes for a Republican seat in Georgia, but Michelle Nunn fell to Republican businessman David Perdue. And in Kansas, Democrats appeared to be counting on Greg Orman, running as an independent against Sen. Pat Roberts, a Republican. Vice President Joe Biden earlier Tuesday called Orman “an independent who will be with us in the state of Kansas.” It wasn’t enough. Roberts held the seat.

Democrats did hold New Hampshire, where Sen. Jeanne Shaheen turned back a strong challenge from former Sen. Scott Brown. And they stopped the Republicans, at least for now, in Louisiana. Since no one got a majority, Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu will face Republican Rep. Bill Cassidy in a runoff next month.

Democrats were defending 21 Senate seats to the Republicans’ 15. Seven of the Democratic seats were in states that went for Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in 2012. Five elected Republicans, all in states where Obama’s approval rating sank and Democrats tried to put distance between themselves and the president.

Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito will become West Virginia’s first female senator. Other winners included Rep. Tom Cotton in Arkansas, Rep. Steve Daines in Montana, House Speaker Thom Tillis in North Carolina and former Gov. Mike Rounds in South Dakota.

“This is probably the worst possible group of states for Democrats since Dwight Eisenhower,” Obama said Tuesday on WNPR in Connecticut.

In the House, the GOP easily won the 218 seats required and was on track to match or surpass the 246 seats they held in President Harry Truman’s administration more than 60 years ago.

In a footnote to one of the year’s biggest political surprises, college professor Dave Brat was elected to the House from Virginia, several months after he defeated Majority Leader Eric Cantor in a Republican primary.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.