Congress, November Elections | featured news

House Democrats elected Nancy Pelosi to remain as their leader Wednesday despite massive party losses in this month's congressional elections that prompted some lawmakers to call for new leadership.

As Senator Lisa Murkowski flew home to Alaska on Wednesday, The Associated Press declared her the winner of her long-shot write-in bid for re-election. Neither the Murkowski campaign nor the campaign of her competitor, Joe Miller, a Tea Party favorite who was backed by former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, made an immediate comment.

One of the most important and underreported results of the midterms was the GOP picked up at least 675 state legislative seats.

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski's campaign on Thursday accused observers for rival Joe Miller of making petty challenges in the counting of voters' write-in ballots in an attempt to tilt the Alaska Senate race in their favor.

Tea party backed Senate candidates in several states significantly underperformed more establishment Republican candidates running on the same ballot last Tuesday, data that provides further evidence that the tea party movement may have cost the GOP seats.

Rows of gray plastic tables fill a sprawling room that overlooks the snow-covered peaks of this port town, where America will begin to learn the answers Wednesday to the final pressing questions of the elections of 2010: Do the people of Alaska know how to color, and do they know how to spell?

Last week's election was bad for Democrats. The next one could be worse. Senate Democrats running in 2012 will be trying to hold their jobs in states where Republicans just scored major congressional and gubernatorial victories - Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, New Mexico and Virginia.

President Barack Obama said Tuesday's elections, in which Republicans won control of the House of Representatives and gained seats in the Senate, signaled that Americans were frustrated with the pace of economic recovery.

Riding a wave of voter discontent, Republicans picked up six Senate seats Tuesday but fell short in their bid to wrest control of the upper house from Democrats and oust Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, CNN projected, based on its analysis of exit poll data.

Republicans enter Election Day confident they will recapture the House as Democrats struggle to face a likely significantly smaller Senate majority.