Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid cautiously declared victory in response to the projection, which gave the centre-left party a 51st seat in the 100-member upper chamber of Congress.
'The American people have spoken clearly and decisively in favour of Democrats leading this country in a new direction,' Reid, a Nevada senator, said in a statement.
'In Iraq and here at home, Americans have made clear they are tired of the failures of the last six years,' he said. 'The days of the do-nothing Congress are over. ... We're ready to get to work.'
The win after Tuesday's congressional elections would cement a Senate majority for the party with 49 Democrats plus two independents, who were expected to vote with the Democrats.
If the projection holds up, the Democrats would have a clean sweep of Congress on a wave of anger against the centre-right Republican Party, keyed by US President George W Bush's war in Iraq and a series of scandals in Washington.
When the new Congress takes office in January, Republicans will lose their 12-year majority in the House of Representatives. Republicans have held the Senate for all but 19 months since 1994.
In the final Senate race to be decided, Webb led by about 8,000 votes over Republican George Allen - a lead of less than 1 per cent, which could trigger a recount.
Webb, a decorated combat veteran of the Vietnam War, served in the Pentagon as secretary of the Navy in the 1980s under Republican president Ronald Reagan, but he ran for the Senate as a Democrat over his opposition to the Bush administration's policies in Iraq. He joins a significant number of centrists among the newly elected Democrats who have made the party's new congressional majorities possible.
A statewide canvass was being carried out across Virginia to confirm preliminary tallies from individual polling stations, The Washington Post reported on its website.
Earlier Wednesday, Democrats in Montana knocked off a Republican incumbent in another extremely close Senate race. Democrat Jon Tester beat Senator Conrad Burns by fewer than 3,000 votes, CNN and NBC reported.
Although a few votes remained outstanding, they were not enough to allow Burns to catch up, but it still could not be predicted whether the margin of victory was wide enough to avoid a recount.
The Montana Senate seat gave the Democrats at least 50 votes. Without Virginia, though, Vice President Dick Cheney would be able to break any tie votes in a 50-50 Senate, allowing the Republicans to continue to lead the chamber.
The apparent 49 Democratic senators were expected to be joined by independent Bernie Sanders, a socialist congressman who was elevated Tuesday to the Senate by voters in the north-eastern state of Vermont, a left-liberal bastion.
Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut was re-elected Tuesday as an independent with considerable Republican support after losing the Democratic nomination for his own seat. Many activists on the left wing of the party, angered by Lieberman's strong support for the war in Iraq, had targeted him for defeat in the Connecticut nominating primary in August.
Despite the repudiation by his own party, the centrist Lieberman, who unsuccessfully ran for vice president in 2000, has vowed to vote for the Democrats.
However, Senate rules in effect require 60 votes on most legislation, which means that coalitions would have to be formed across party lines on many issues.
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