Washington - The fate of the US Senate remained in question Wednesday morning, as election officials continued to tally results in two key races where Republican lawmakers and their opposition- Democrat challengers were separated by the slimmest of margins.
The results of Senate races in Virginia and Montana will determine whether the Democrats will take control of the upper house, after already sweeping into control of the US House of Representatives for the first time in 12 years in Tuesday's election.
The loss of the House and potential loss of the Senate handed a stark defeat to President George W Bush and his Republican Party in elections heavily influenced by the war in Iraq.
The centre-left Democrats and centre-right Republicans were tied with 49 seats each in the 100-seat chamber on Wednesday. Democrats needed to win six key Senate races to also take control of the Senate. They appeared to have gained four Senate seats and were leading by slim margins in the races for the two seats that would put them over the top.
In Virginia, Democratic challenger Jim Webb was up by less than 1 per cent, or less than 8,000 votes, over Republican Senator George Allen. In Montana Democratic challenger Jon Tester also led by 1 per cent over Republican Senator Conrad Burns, with the candidates less than 2,000 votes apart.
Recounts are possible in both states, meaning a clear winner might not emerge for several days, or longer. Virginia election law allows a candidate to request a recount if the candidates are separated by 1 percentage point or less, and Montana law allows recounts if candidates are within 0.5 percentage points of each other.
In Montana, the tally was not yet within that margin, but state election officials said that problems with new electronic voting machines could delay the results and the margin could narrow further as votes continued to be counted.
As members of both parties were on the edge of their seat awaiting the results in the Senate, beaming Democratic leaders celebrated the House victory as a mandate for change - topped by finding a way out of Iraq, where nearly 3,000 US soldiers have died in more than three years of war.
'We cannot continue down this catastrophic path, and so we say to the president: Mr President, we need a new direction in Iraq,' said California Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, who is poised to become the first woman speaker of the House.
'Let us work together to find a solution to the war in Iraq,' she told cheering Democrats in Washington.
Bush called Pelosi to congratulate her on Democrats' House victory on Wednesday morning, asking her to work with Republican leaders, CNN reported.
Democrats took up to 27 seats from the Republicans in the 435- member House, more than the 15 needed to win a majority, US television networks said, citing projections based on partial returns. An interim count gave the Democrats 228 seats, the Republicans 195 with 13 still to be decided.
Six years into his presidency, Bush now faces at least one opposition-led legislative chamber for his final two years in office.
Under the presidential system, he is commander-in-chief of the US military, wields broad powers to set foreign policy and can veto legislation. But Bush's refusal to set a timetable for a US troop withdrawal from Iraq is certain to come under intense pressure.
Democrats had turned the elections into a referendum on Bush and the war in Iraq, which polls show most Americans believe has gone wrong. Bush's approval ratings have slumped, hovering around 40 per cent.
In pre-election surveys, Americans consistently ranked the war in Iraq as their top concern, even as Bush declared it the 'central front' in the fight against terrorism and said that Democrats would abandon Iraq and make the US less safe.
Corruption and sex scandals in Congress and the government's botched response to Hurricane Katrina, which flooded New Orleans last year, also weighed on Bush and the Republicans.
'We always recognized this was going to be a challenging year,' said Republican Party national chief Ken Mehlman. 'Whenever a nation is at war, a president's party typically loses seats. We will try to work on a bipartisan basis.'
In the flush of victory, Democrats pledged to fight for a fairer economy, do more to break US dependence on foreign oil and heal a politically polarized nation.
Defeated Republican senators underscored the themes that brought out voters: Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, a moderate who voted for the invasion of Iraq; Rick Santorum, a fervent war supporter and leading social conservative; and Mike DeWine of Ohio, where local Republicans were dogged by corruption scandals.
The Democrats also overtook the Republicans in the nation's state governor mansions, 28-22, with a net gain of six gubernatorial races.
The war in Iraq propelled many voters to cast ballots Tuesday.
'I would have been one who said we shouldn't have gone there in the first place,' said Virginia voter Mark Black, 32. 'People who want more of the same didn't get my vote.'
Bush planned to hold a news conference at 1800 GMT Wednesday to address the election results.
© 2006 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur
