Early results in the midterm elections last night were inconclusive, but Republicans remain poised to secure a substantial majority in the House of Representatives for the next two years.
The last pre-election estimates by Charlie Cook and Stuart Rothenberg, the most authoritative predictors of US election results, were that Republicans would pick up 50-65 seats last night. The GOP needed only 39 seats to take control of the House.
Republicans were expected to pick up about eight Senate seats in addition to the 41 they already hold, leaving them two seats short of a majority in the upper chamber.
The first results, based on exit polls and a partial vote count, showed that Democrat governor Joe Manchin managed to hold the key seat of West Virginia.
Rand Paul, the Republican backed by the populist Tea Party in Kentucky, won that state's Senate seat by 54 per cent to 46 per cent for Jack Conway, the Irish-American Democrat. Paul, an opthamologist and the son of the Texas Representative Ron Paul is a novice to politics who has said the 1964 Civil Rights Act that ended racial segregation was a violation of constitutional freedom.
Exit polls showed the Republican Dan Coats took a former Democratic Senate in Indiana With 13 per cent of the votes counted in Ohio, the Democratic governor Ted Strickland led with 51 per cent of the vote in what was regarded as a toss-up race against the Republican John Kasich.
Irish-American Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy from Vermont won re-election. Senator Jim DeMint, a patriarch of the Tea Party, was re-elected in South Carolina. The contest for Mr Obama's former Senate seat in Illinois was initially tied with the Democrat Alexi Giannoulias and the Republican Mark Kirk both on 47 per cent. In Delaware, Chris Coons defeated Christine O'Donnell of the Tea Party, saving vice-president Joe Biden's former Senate seat for the Democrats. The Tea Party triumphed in Florida, however, where the Cuban American Marco Rubio won a Senate seat.
A Republican majority in the House will thwart President Barack Obama's campaign promises on climate change, immigration reform and the rights of trade unions. A Republican-controlled House will try to reverse Mr Obama's healthcare Bill and the financial reform Bill.