| In the United States, the contentious election campaign came to an end with the Democrats taking control of the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday night with the Senate falling into Democratic hands a couple of days later. The Democratic victory ends a Republican hold on power in Washington, D.C., and is considered to be a repudiation of the Iraqi War, the Bush Administration and Congress itself. Nancy Pelosi, the Representative from San Francisco who is expected to be the next Speaker of the House, announced that the American people had voted for change. By dawn on Wednesday, the Democrats were heading towards winning 232 seats in the House of Representatives. Analysts believe Republicans were to end up with 203 seats in that body. Democrats ended up taking 27 Republican held seats. No Democratic incumbent went down to defeat as of Wednesday morning. (Some vote counting in closer races is ongoing.) 2006 seems like a strange reversal of the 1994 campaign when Republicans seized control of Congress during the second year of the Clinton Administration. The Republicans went on to impeach President Bill Clinton. Rumors regarding similar action by Democrats has been swirling around Washington in recent days although the Democratic leader, Pelosi, has said that impeachment is "off the table." Republicans lost in every region of the United states -- urban, suburban and rural. Middle class voters who abandoned the Democratic party in the 1990s appear to have returned in 2006. |
[ The 2006 election results are in. 
