eehhh ya *****. The Republicans had the majority before the 2006 election.
The GREAT turnover in 2006!
Democrats Take Control of House; Senate Hangs on Virginia and Montana
By ADAM NAGOURNEY
Published: November 8, 2006
Democrats seized control of the House of Representatives and defeated at least four Republican senators yesterday, riding a wave of voter discontent with President Bush and the war in Iraq.
Jon Tester, a Democrat, who holds a narrow lead in the race against Senator Conrad Burns of Montana, preparing for an early morning television interview.
Eliot Spitzer, who was elected governor of New York, celebrated in Manhattan.
But the fate of the Senate remained in doubt this morning, as races for Republican-held seats in Montana and Virginia remained too close to call as Election Day turned into the day after. Democrats would need both seats to win control of the Senate as well.
In Montana, Senator Conrad Burns, a Republican, was trailing Jon Tester, a Democrat, by a narrow margin. The race in Virginia — between another Republican incumbent, Senator George Allen, and Jim Webb, his Democratic challenger — was so close that some officials said it would have to be resolved by a recount.
That prospect could mean prolonged uncertainty over control of the Senate, since a recount can be requested only after the results are officially certified on Nov. 27th, according to the state board of elections. Last year a recount in the race for Attorney General was not resolved until Dec. 21.
But the Democrats’ victory in the House — overcoming a legendarily efficient White House political machine — represented a dramatic turnaround in the fortunes of the party and signaled a sea change in the political dynamics in Washington after a dozen years in which Republicans controlled Congress for all but a brief period.
No less significant for the long-term political fortunes of their party, Democrats were winning governors’ seats across the country — notably in Ohio, a state that has been at the center of the past two presidential elections.
By early this morning, Democrats had picked up 24 seats in the House, knocking off Republican incumbents from New Hampshire to Florida, officials in both parties said. Although results from the West Coast had not yet come in, neither party anticipated that the basic outcome would change once all votes were counted.
Among the faces that will be absent from the halls of Congress next year are some high-profile and long-serving members of the Republican Party, including Representatives Charles Bass of New Hampshire. E. Clay Shaw Jr. of Florida, J.D. Hayworth of Arizona, Jim Ryun of Kansas and Nancy L. Johnson of Connecticut.
(Sidebar) They took the Senate back too!