Hello, Speaker Pelosi! Dem House Majority Could Be 30-plus

Posted by Evan Derkacz at 4:31 PM on November 7, 2006.

For the first time since 1994's "Republican revolution" the Democrats have taken control of the House of Representatives. Dozens of competetive races have yet to be decided but, according to NBC, the Democrats may wind up with a 30-seat lead or more.

Nancy Pelosi is likely to become the first female Speaker of the House, replacing embattled Bob Hastert, and it remains to be seen whether a Pelosi-led House will try to impeach the President.

Conyers and other House Democrats have expressed some interest. According to the Washington Post: "[they] have called for impeachment hearings into allegations that Bush misled the nation about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction and that he violated federal law by approving warrantless wiretaps on Americans."

Pelosi has said that she supports investigations but doesn't see impeachment as a goal. Of course, that was before the election when the threat of impeachment would have been a powerful rallying cry for Republicans.

A number of upsets are sprinkled atop the Democratic takeover. Just moments ago, for example, Republican darling Melissa Hart was defeated by Democratic nobody, Jason Altmire, in Pennsylvania. Republicans Anne Northrup, Shelley Sekula-Gibbs (Tom DeLay's replacement), and Connecticut's Chris Shays were all favored to win their races as well.

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The Democrats needed to "net" 15 seats of the 97 House races and 6 of the 17 Senate races.

As of 11:09pm EST, The House of Representatives is a Democratic body:

1. Kirsten Gillibrand defeated John Sweeney in NY
2. Democrat Ron Klein defeated Clay Shaw in Florida
3. Timothy Mahoney defeated Joe Negron to take Mark Foley's seat
4. Democrat Gabrielle Giffords defeated Randy Graf in Arizona
5. Charles Taylor defeated by Democrat Heath Shuler in North Carolina
6. Republican Raymond Meier went down to Mike Arcuri in New York
7. Baron Hill defeated Mike Sodrel, Republican of Indiana
8. Christopher Carney leads Donald Sherwood in Pennsylvania
9. Dem Joseph Sestak beat Curt Weldon also in Pennsylvania
10. New Hampshire Dem Paul Hodes beat Charlie Bass
11. Ohio's Zachary Space is way ahead of Republican Joy Padgett
12. Dem Chris Murphy beat Nancy Johnson in Connecticut
13. Democrat Joseph Donnelly beat incumbent Chris "count" Chocola in Indiana
14. Democrat John Yarmuth upset incumbent Anne Northrup in Kentucky
15. Democrat Brad Ellsworth is the projected winner in Indiana's 8th District, sending the number to 14

Check back for updates!

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Calling elections:
The AP has called the following Senate races of interest:
-Joe Lieberman-I elected in Connecticut
-Sherrod Brown-D elected in Ohio
-Debbie Stabenow-D elected in Michigan
-Robert Menendez-D elected in New Jersey
-Bob Casey-D elected in Pennsylvania

And CNN has called Rhode Island for Sheldon Whitehouse, defeating Lincoln Chafee.

And for Governor, AP has called:

Dave Freudenthal-D elected in Wyoming
Eliot Spitzer-D elected in New York
Brad Henry-D elected in Oklahoma
Ted Strickland-D elected in Ohio
Deval Patrick-D elected in Massachusetts

There are a lot more results being called, but with no brainers like Ted Kennedy and Trent Lott being the remainder, go read the rest for yourself.

Tagged as: election06

Evan Derkacz is an AlterNet editor. He writes and edits PEEK, the blog of blogs.