Congressional rivals go at it for last round

Democrats need to win 15 seats to control the House, with about 50 races nationwide considered competitive, and six seats to control the Senate, with about 11 races considered close. But the final round of opinion-polling sent mixed signals just hours before the voting began.

In the hotly contested Tennessee race, for example, some opinion polls indicated that Republican Bob Corker was ahead of Democrat Harold Ford by 12 points, while another had Corker ahead by only 3 points. In Virginia, Republican Senator George Allen is either leading Democratic rival James Webb by 3 points or is trailing him by as much as 8 points, depending on the survey.

President Bush has spent the final days of the campaign trying to boost candidates in normally safe Republican districts. But in an embarrassing twist in Florida yesterday, GOP gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist passed up a chance to introduce Bush at a Pensacola rally, campaigning instead elsewhere in the state with Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona. "We've got to fight for votes in the other parts of the state," Crist said.

Bush attended the Crist rally anyway and attacked Democrats for criticizing his policies in Iraq.

"Harsh criticism is not a plan for victory," Bush said. "Second-guessing is not a strategy. We have a plan for victory, and part of that plan is to make sure Republicans control the House and the Senate."

Yet Senator Chuck Schumer, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, kept the pressure on. "Every vote cast for a Democrat on Tuesday is for a new, smarter Iraq policy," he said.

Interviewed on the MSNBC cable network yesterday, Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean predicted good things for his party based on data that he said show most unaffiliated voters are likely to pick Democrats. By contrast, "There's probably going to be 18 percent of independents who are going to vote for Republicans," he said.

A Fox News Channel survey found that 20 percent of independent voters approved of the job that the Republican-controlled Congress is doing. But when asked whether they were satisfied with the performance of their own member of Congress, 46 percent of those voters said yes.

Still, Republicans have gained some ground with voters overall. A Pew Research Center poll asking voters which party should control Congress indicated that Democrats were ahead of Republicans by 47 percent to 43 percent. A month ago, the Democrats led the GOP by 13 points.

Most analysts have predicted that Democrats will win the House but said control of the Senate is up for grabs. Yesterday, Charles Cook, of The Cook Political Report, said there has been a modest uptick for the GOP, but there aren't any late-breaking issues that would lead him to significantly change his forecast.

"The fundamental dynamics of this election have not changed," Cook said. Unless there is a dramatic reversal at the ballot box, he added, it's "still going to be a really ugly night for Republicans."

Cook estimates that Democrats will win between 20 and 35 House seats and could pick up as many as six Senate seats -- though he would not predict that Democrats will take control of the chamber.

Nevertheless, a number of House and Senate races were closely contested nationwide.

In Rhode Island, Republican Senator Lincoln Chafee -- a moderate and perhaps Bush's strongest GOP critic in the Senate -- was in a tough fight with Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse. In Montana, normally a Republican stronghold, incumbent Senator Conrad Burns, a Republican, was tied in one poll with Democrat Jon Tester, but in another survey Tester led Burns by nine points.

While the war in Iraq has dominated many races, other issues have taken center stage.

In Missouri, where Republican Jim Talent and Democrat Claire McCaskill are in a statistical dead heat, the outcome could hinge on whether voters favor embryonic stem cell research, which scientists say is the key to curing a variety of ailments . Actor Michael J. Fox, who has Parkinson's disease, endorsed McCaskill, who backs the research. Talent says he supports adult stem cell research, which many scientists consider less effective, and believes similar research on embryos could lead to human cloning.

Initiatives that ban same-sex marriage are on ballots in eight states, which analysts say could fuel voter turnout for Republicans.

But voters on the right could be discouraged by two high-profile sex scandals: the resignation of Representative Mark Foley, a Florida Republican who sent salacious e-mails to underage boys, and the resignation of the Rev. Ted Haggard of Colorado, a religious conservative leader and White House contact who admitted to "sexual immorality" involving a gay male prostitute.

As Election Day arrives, the midterm elections have become notable for highly negative advertising, much of it paid for by national party committees.

In Tennessee, the Democrats' Senate campaign committee ran an ad accusing Corker of having "paid no taxes," although local reports noted that Corker had various write-offs that cut his taxes. The Republican committee raised eyebrows with an ad featuring a bare-shouldered blonde winking and cooing into the camera, "Harold -- call me!"