With control of Congress and key statehouses in the balance, President Clinton hunted West Coast votes for Democrats on Sunday in a final, uphill campaign push. Republicans expressed confidence they would capture control of the Senate, and perhaps the House, as well.
With voters expressing widespread anger and disillusionment, the polls all pointed to major, midterm Republican congressional gains.In the House, where Democrats have held a majority for 40 years, GOP Whip Newt Gingrich predicted Republican gains of 35 to 60 seats. A switch of 40 would make him speaker, the first Republican to wield the gavel since Dwight Eisenhower was president.
Gingrich was behind a Republican Contract with America, a campaign manifesto that made GOP candidates everywhere the party of lower taxes and a more conservative government.
Clinton's counterclaim was that the country was better off than it was two years ago, and that Republicans only offered a return to "trickle-down economics" that favored the wealthy.
The midterm election math worked against the Democrats, who could expect to lose seats as the party holding the White House.
So did the 1994 numbers.
Of nine Senate seats with no incumbent, six are currently held by the Democrats. Republican candidates seemed well-positioned to win four of the six handsomely - Lt. Gov. Michael DeWine in Ohio; Reps. John Kyl in Arizona and Olympia Snowe in Maine; and actor-lawyer Fred Thompson in Tennessee.
Republican Rep. Craig Thomas in Wyoming and former Gov. John Ashcroft in Missouri were heavily favored to hold two open Senate seats now in Republican hands. The third GOP seat pitted GOP Rep. Rod Grams and former Democratic legislator Ann Wynia in Minnesota, one of the tightest races in the nation. Clinton was returning there for the second time in three days.
Open seats aside, Democratic incumbents Chuck Robb in Virginia, Harris Wofford in Pennsylvania, Jim Sasser in Tennessee and Dianne Feinstein in California were in tough races.
Virginia's race, in particular, drew nationwide attention for Oliver North's Republican candidacy - and Virginia GOP Sen. John Warner's embrace of the independent in the race, Marshall Coleman. There was no more controversial candidate this fall than North.