Scandal took its undeniable toll on the Republicans. Democrat Zack Space won the race to succeed Bob Ney, who pleaded guilty to corruption this fall in the Jack Abramoff scandal. Republican Rep. John Sweeney lost his seat in New York several days after reports that he had roughed up his wife — an allegation she denied. Republicans also lost the seat that Rep. Mark Foley had held. He resigned on Sept. 29 after being confronted with sexually explicit computer messages he had written to teenage pages.

Rep. Don Sherwood lost despite apologizing to the voters for a long-term affair with a much younger woman; and Rep. Curt Weldon, also from Pennsylvania, was denied a new term after he became embroiled in a corruption investigation.

Surveys of voters suggested Democrats were winning the support of independents with almost 60 percent support, and middle-class voters were leaving Republicans behind.

About six in 10 voters said they disapproved of the way Bush is handling his job, that the nation is on the wrong track and that they oppose the war in Iraq. Voters in all groups were more inclined to vote for Democratic candidates than for Republicans.

Over half of the voters registered dissatisfaction with the way Republican leaders in Congress dealt with Foley. They voted overwhelming Democratic in House races, by a margin of 3-to-1.

The surveys were taken by The Associated Press and the networks.

History worked against the GOP, too. Since World War II, the party in control of the White House has lost an average 31 House seats and six Senate seats in the second midterm election of a president's tenure in office.

More than the party-run battle for control of Congress and the statehouses was at stake.

South Dakota voters rejected the toughest abortion law in the land — a measure that would have outlawed the procedure under almost any circumstances.

In a comeback unlike any other, Sen. Joe Lieberman won a new term in Connecticut — dispatching Democrat Ned Lamont and thus winning when it counted most against the man who had prevailed in a summertime primary. Lieberman, a supporter of Bush's war policy, ran as an independent, but will side with the Democrats when he returns to Washington.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton coasted to a second Democratic term in New York, winning roughly 70 percent of the vote in a warm-up to a possible run for the White House in 2008.

Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania became the first Republican senator to fall to the Democrats, losing his seat after two conservative terms to Bob Casey Jr., the state treasurer.

In Ohio, Sen. Mike DeWine lost to Rep. Sherrod Brown, a liberal seven-term lawmaker. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, the most liberal Republican in the Senate and an opponent of the war, fell not long afterward to Sheldon Whitehouse, former state attorney general.