2 differ on ‘wave’ of GOP votes

Republican sees shift in Congress; Democrats expect to hold on

— The Republican Party chief on Sunday forecast a wave of anti-Democratic voting on Election Day, while his Democratic counterpart said a strong get-out-the-vote effort would hold back losses and help keep Congress out of GOP hands.

Nine days before elections that will decide whether President Barack Obama will face a Republican Congress, party chairman Michael Steele said he has seen a groundswell and energy behind GOP candidates as he has traveled around the country.

“I think you are going to see a wave, an unprecedented wave on Election Day that is going to surprise a lot of people,” Steele said.

Steele said he believes “absolutely” that Republicans will gain the seats needed to become the majority party in the House and thus oust Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. He was less certain that Republicans will take over the Senate.

Steele said the Republican National Committee has raised $175 million in this election cycle, as voters are showing dissatisfaction with President Barack Obama’s policies. Steele challenged Obama’s accusations that Republicans have been unwilling to work with him on health care and environmental issues. Rather, Democrats have “summarily rejected” Republican positions, Steele said.

Campaigning across the country before the Nov. 2 elections, Obama is accusingRepublicans of threatening to roll back his policies.

Nonpartisan political analysts, including Charlie Cook of the Cook Political Report in Washington, project that Democrats will likely lose several seats in the Senate and cede control of the House to Republicans.

Tim Kaine, the Democratic National Committee chairman, expressed confidence that Democrats would retain power in both chambers. He argued that early voting and turnout at rallies for Democratic candidates are evidence that the party’s “ground game” will prevent the disaster some are predicting for the party.

“From this point forward it’s all about turnout and ground game,” Kaine said. “We’ve got work to do, but we think we can do it.”

“Four or five months ago, the Republicans thought they had a great chance at taking both houses, but for a variety of reasons the Senate has gotten much more difficult for them,” Kaine said.

Republicans need a 40-seat gain to take over the House.

Republican political adviser Karl Rove predicted GOP gains in the upper 50s to low 60s in the House, well over the number needed for a GOP majority. Polls show intensityamong voters on the side of those favoring the GOP, he said.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., the chairman of the Democrats’ House campaign committee, said he believes the House will remain in Democratic control, saying that early voting was showing good news for the party.

Van Hollen said his party is starting to see momentum from early voting and concerns of unregulated funding to Republican causes.

“The American people are connecting the dots between these tens of millions of dollars of secret special interest money,” Van Hollen said. “When we look under the curtain, we’re beginning to see who these groups are and the fact that they want to take us back to a day when special interests ran Washington.”

In the Senate, Democrats are seen as having a better chance of holding their majority even though 37 seats are up for election. Democrats currently have 57 seats, plus the backing of two independents, but they are expected to lose some seats to Republicans.

Pat Toomey, the Republican candidate for Senate in Pennsylvania, echoed Steele, acknowledging it would be difficult to control the Senate. Still, Toomey said he is optimistic his party will win enough seats to take over the chamber. He is trying to show his opponent, Rep. Joe Sestak has “extreme views.”

“The key is for me to continue to get my message out to the swing voters, to the independent voters who understand that Washington’s on the wrong track,” Toomey said. “We can’t borrow and spend our way to prosperity.”

Joe Manchin, the Democratic West Virginia governor running for the Senate seat of the late Robert C. Byrd, has tried to overcome Obama’s low popularity in the state by highlighting his differences with the president. Manchin said he disagrees with Obama on carbon cap-and-trade legislation, which has little support in his coal-producing state.

The Democrats’ healthcare overhaul was “overreaching,” Manchin said. He said he would have preferred to stick with items that both Democrats and Republicans could agree on, such as making it illegal to deny health-insurance coverage to people with pre-existing conditions.

“Reaching as far as they did in the - in the weeds of the bill that we didn’t know about, no one else knew about until it came out - knowing that, I would not have supported that or voted for that at that time,” said Manchin, who is running against Republican businessman John Raese.

Steele appeared Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press, while Kaine spoke on ABC’s This Week. Rove and Van Hollen appeared on CBS’ Face the Nation. Toomey and Manchin appeared on Fox News Sunday.

Information for this article was contributed by Douglass K. Daniel of The Associated Press and by William McQuillen and Phil Mattingly of Bloomberg News.

Front Section, Pages 2 on 10/25/2010

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